For the first time in the history of the Best of Ann Arbor, the male athlete of the year was awarded to a minor league baseball player Drew Henson, who spent most of last season with the AA Norwich Navigators.
- Paul Wong
- Drew Henson works his magic on the field as star quarterback Go Drew!<br><br>MARJOIRE MARSHALL/Daily
The award is handed out annually and voted on by readers of The Michigan Daily.
It seems this year”s voters were impressed by Henson”s .287 batting average, seven homeruns and 39 RBIs. The thirdbaseman was selected for last year”s Eastern League All-Star game.
“Drew Henson is the best, THE best minor league baseball player,” LSA junior Joe Pawlick said. “He has the potential to be as good as Dean Palmer.”
Henson was traded from Norwich to the Chattanooga Lookouts on July 12 for major league considerations.
Also, the Norwich Navigators are a farm team of the New York Yankees, a major league baseball team in the Bronx owned by Ohio State graduate and booster George Steinbrenner. In football, Ohio State lost to Michigan in Columbus this year, 38-26, where Henson was coincidentally quarterbacking the Michigan squad.
Henson also played quarterback for Michigan during other games this year but not anymore, because the Yankees (or was it Norwich?) reacquired Henson and paid him millions and millions of dollars not to beat Ohio State anymore.
“I feel another year in college will get me closer to my degree and help further my development as a quarterback,” Henson said in a Michigan Athletic Department press release Jan. 7, apparently unaware that his word is his bond.
On March 24, Henson changed his tune to the truth, and revealed he was leaving Michigan for the Yankees: “I knew that I would eventually need to make a choice between two sports that I love.”
Henson made that statement from his hometown of Brighton, where his mom coaches women”s basketball at the local high school. Carol, the name that Drew”s mom goes by, was suspended from her coaching position in October of 2000 for supplying her players with multivitamin. Scientists have not been able to conclude that Henson”s bad decision to drop football is a result of bad genes.
Nonetheless, the legions of Michigan football fans are still behind Henson.
“As a Michigan fan, I feel violated,” LSA junior Chris Bowman said when he heard the traitor/quitter was given the accolade. “Unless “Best of Ann Arbor” actually stands for “biggest bounty-hunting scumbuckets in town,” this is the biggest atrocity in the history of ballot-casting.”
The voters rallying behind Henson despite his choice to ditch Michigan and making him Best Athlete is not entirely unprecedented Benedict Arnold was voted American patriot of the year in 1780 and Judas was voted man of the century from 0-100 A.D in the bible.