The Top 15 male athletes from the South Sound since 2000
On New Year’s Eve, 1999, The News Tribune produced a list of the Top 100 high school athletes to come out of the South Sound in the 20th century, just before we ventured into the new millennium. The area — roughly bounded by Kent to the north, Eatonville to the south and Enumclaw and Shelton to the east and west for the purposes of the project— produced some great athletes over the years.
Since then? It’s been more of the same. Our rapidly-growing pocket of the Pacific Northwest has continued to produce incredible athletes over the past 20 years, from World Series and Super Bowl champions, to Olympic athletes, basketball stars and more.
THE CRITERIA
While TNT’s century list focused on prep athletes, looking solely at their accomplishments during high school, we thought it would be fun to take a more comprehensive look at each athlete’s entire career, accounting for their whole body of work, from high school to college to professional achievements.
To be considered, athletes had to attend South Sound high schools and graduate in 2000 or later.
We decided to split our selections into two lists: 15 men and 15 women. Naturally, it’s not an easy task to whittle down so many great athletes this area has seen over the past 20 years, but we’ll give it a shot.
Here are the Top 15 men, presented alphabetically. The list of Top 15 women was released earlier this week.
Zach Banner
The Lakes High School product was an All-American and all-state lineman in high school, as well as named to The News Tribune’s Northwest Nuggets and Western 100 as a senior. A top recruit, he had Division I offers from 22 schools. Banner also played basketball for Lakes, averaging 18.6 points and 17.3 rebounds during the Lancers’ run to their only Class 3A championship in 2011, but ultimately chose to primarily focus on football in college, and signed with USC. He started 37 of 39 games played for the Trojans in his four seasons and was an All-Pac-12 first-team selection as a senior. Banner was drafted in the fourth round by the Colts in the 2017 NFL Draft, has also been with the Browns and Panthers, and has spent the past three seasons with the Steelers. He is currently on injured reserve after tearing his ACL in Week 1.
Avery Bradley
A Tacoma native, Bradley was a three-year starter for Bellarmine Prep before finishing out his high school career in Nevada. He was considered the top player in the nation in the 2009 class by ESPN, and a consensus top-five player by other recruiting sites, and was a McDonald’s All-American. He played one college season at Texas, where he named to the Big 12 All-Rookie Team before declaring for the 2010 NBA Draft, and was picked 19th overall by the Celtics. He was named to the NBA All-Defensive Team twice while with Boston. He’s also played for the Pistons, Clippers and Grizzlies, and signed a two-year deal with the Lakers last year, though he opted out of the 2020 restart to be with his family. Bradley has averaged 11.8 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists through 571 games in his 10-year NBA career.
Marcus Chambers
The Foss High School graduate won the Class 3A 200 and 400-meter titles in both his junior and senior seasons for the Falcons, running a blazing personal record time 21.30 to win the 200 in 2013 in his senior year. Chambers went on to a be a seven-time All-American at the University of Oregon, a four-time Pac-12 champion and a national champion, as a member of the indoor distance medley relay team which ran a winning time of 9:30.53 at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Travis Ishikawa
Before he became a two-time World Series champion, the Federal Way High School product paced the Eagles to back-to-back appearances in the Class 4A state championship game in 2001-02, including winning the title in 2001. He was set to head to Oregon State to play college baseball before the Giants drafted him in the 21st round in 2002. The first baseman spent parts of five seasons in the minors and debuted with the Giants in 2006. He was up-and-down between the minors and majors during his eight-year big league career, but won a pair of championship rings in two stints with San Francisco in 2010 and 2014. His walk-off home run against the Cardinals in Game 5 of the 2014 National League Championship Series clinched the pennant for the Giants. Ishikawa also played for the Pirates, Yankees, Orioles and Brewers, and hit .255/.321/.391 in 488 big league games.
Demetrious Johnson
The Washington High School grad was a standout prep wrestler, but will be better remembered for his long, successful track record as a mixed martial artist in the UFC. Johnson, nicknamed ‘Mighty Mouse’ in the octagon, is widely regarded as one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time. He was the inaugural UFC Flyweight champion and has a 30-3 professional record. He’s the only UFC fighter to record over 10 takedowns in three different fights and holds the record for most finishes in UFC flyweight history with seven. Johnson currently competes in ONE Championship, a Singapore-based MMA organization.
Jermaine Kearse
The Lakes High School product also became a Super Bowl champion with the hometown Seahawks, playing a key role in Seattle’s title run in 2013. Before he reached football’s grandest stage, Kearse was a star for the Lancers, played in the U.S. Army All-American game, was an all-state wide receiver, and named to The News Tribune’s Northwest Nuggets and Western 100, among many other accolades. He also played basketball and ran track at Lakes, but chose football, and signed with UW. He played four seasons for the Huskies, finishing his career with 183 catches, 2,871 yards and 29 receiving TDs. He signed with the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent in 2012 and played five seasons with Seattle from 2012-2016, including playing in both Super Bowl appearances during that stretch. He had four catches for 65 yards and a touchdown in the championship win over the Broncos in 2014. Kearse also played two seasons for the Jets and then briefly for the Lions in 2019 before a broken leg ended his season. He announced his retirement from the NFL in September. Kearse played 99 games in his professional career with 255 catches for 3,290 yards and 17 touchdowns.
Jon Lester
The 2002 Bellarmine Prep grad was the state Gatorade Player of the Year in 2002 as a high school senior, before being selected in the second round of the 2002 Major League Baseball Draft by the Boston Red Sox. He’s a five-time MLB All-Star (2010, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018), was the NLCS MVP in 2016 and is a three-time World Series champion, winning titles with the Red Sox in 2007 and 2013, and a third title with the Chicago Cubs in 2016. Lester started and won the final game of the 2007 World Series for the Red Sox against the Colorado Rockies. The 36-year-old left-handed pitcher owns a 3.60 career earned run average in the major leagues and has 193 wins in 423 starts.
Ryan Moore
He attended Cascade Christian High School, a private school in Puyallup, but played his prep golf for Puyallup High School. Moore won the Class 4A state title in 2001, edging Capital’s Andres Gonzales. During his junior year at UNLV, Moore captured multiple titles, including the U.S. Amateur, the Western Amateur, the U.S. Amateur Public Links (also won in 2002) and the NCAA individual championship. In 2005, he was given the Ben Hogan Award as the top college player. Since going pro in 2005, Moore has won five titles on the PGA Tour.
Apolo Ohno
A graduate of Decatur High School, Ohno is one of the United States’ most decorated Olympic athletes ever, representing the U.S. in short track speed skating. An eight-time medalist, Ohno won two gold, two silver and four bronze medals for the United States and was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2019. He appeared in the 2002, 2006 and 2010 Olympic Games for the United States.
Danny Shelton
A standout football and track and field star at Auburn High School, Shelton was a top-10 recruit in the state in the 2011 class. The defensive tackle went on to a career at the University of Washington, where he was named a first-team all-Pac-12 selection in 2014.
Shelton was selected in the first round of the 2015 NFL Draft with the No. 12 pick by the Cleveland Browns. He has played for the Browns, the Patriots and currently for the Detroit Lions. He has a Super Bowl win, winning Super Bowl LIII with the Patriots against the Los Angeles Rams.
Jonathan Stewart
The 2004 Timberline High School grad is still the state’s career rushing leader, with 7,755 yards from 2001-04 during his career with the Blazers. As a senior in 2004, he rushed for 2,301 yards, averaging 11.2 yards per carry and scored 32 touchdowns. He was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year and was named to the USA Today All-USA Team.
At the University of Oregon, Stewart was a two-time first-team All-American in 2006 and 2007. He was selected No. 13 overall in the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers and played in the NFL from 2008 to 2017 and was a Pro Bowl selection in 2015.
Rodney Stuckey
The Kentwood High School product led the Conquerors to the Class 4A state title in 2004 — the school’s first boys basketball championship — before heading to Eastern Washington to play college basketball, where his No. 3 was retired in 2009. In two seasons at Eastern, Stuckey averaged 24.2 points per game as a freshman — and was the Big Sky Freshman of the Year — and 24.6 as a sophomore. His average as a sophomore ranked seventh in the nation, and he was named the Big Sky Player of the Year. He was a two-time All-Big Sky first-teamer. He was selected No. 15 overall by the Pistons in the 2007 NBA Draft and made the NBA All-Rookie second team. Stuckey played 10 seasons in the NBA for the Pistons and Pacers, averaging 12.9 points, 3.7 assists and 3 rebounds.
Isaiah Thomas
Perhaps the most decorated basketball player the South Sound has produced, Thomas started his prolific career at Curtis High School, where he took the Vikings as far as the Class 4A state semifinals as a junior. He still holds six records — including total points (162) and highest scoring average (40.5) — from that 2006 tournament, when he posted an unheard of 51 points against Franklin in a semifinals loss. Thomas averaged 26.2 points per game as a sophomore at Curtis and 31.2 as a junior before transferring to South Kent School in Connecticut, where he graduated in 2008 before returning home to play collegiately at UW. Thomas is a legend there, too, and had his No. 2 retired in 2018. He averaged 16.4 points, 4 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game in his three seasons with the Huskies, was the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and a two-time All-Pac-10 first-teamer. He paced the Huskies to the Pac-10 Tournament title twice, including hitting his famous “cold-blooded” buzzer beater in overtime against Arizona to win it his final season in 2011. He was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player in both the 2010 and 2011 wins. He also led UW to the NCAA Tournament all three of his seasons, taking the Huskies as far as the Sweet 16 — which the program hasn’t matched since. Thomas was selected by the Kings as the final pick of the 2011 NBA Draft, and has been a staple in the league for a decade, despite some injuries in recent seasons. He has played for the Kings, Suns, Celtics, Cavaliers, Lakers, Nuggets and Wizards, and has career averages of 18.1 points, 5 assists and 2.5 rebounds in 525 career games. He is a two-time NBA All-Star (2016 and 2017).
Desmond Trufant
Younger brother of Marcus, Trufant graduated from Wilson High School in 2009, where he was named to the All-Narrows League first-team as both a running back and corner for the Rams during his senior season in 2008. Went on to the University of Washington, where he was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection as a junior in 2012. He was drafted in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft with the No. 22 pick by the Atlanta Falcons, where he played from 2013-19, making the PFWA All-Rookie team in 2013 and a Pro Bowl in 2015. Trufant currently plays for the Detroit Lions.
Reggie Williams
The Lakes grad was a highly decorated high school recruit, named the state’s AP player of the year in 2000, leading Lakes to the Class 3A state championship game against Skyline, tallying 45 catches for 881 yards and 16 touchdowns. He was a USA Today All-American and was named to The News Tribune’s 2001 class of Northwest Nuggets. He went on to a standout career at the University of Washington, where he racked up 243 receptions and 3,598 receiving yards, with 16 career 100-yard receiving games. Williams was a two-time first-team Pac-10 selection for the Huskies and a consensus All-American in 2002. He was drafted with the No. 9 pick in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars and played from 2004 to 2010 in the NFL.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 8:03 AM.
