Benny Westcott
Aiden Tyler and Savannah Hutchins were named the Booster Club Boy and Girl of the Year at the Sweet Home Booster Club’s Senior Athletic Awards Banquet, held Sunday evening, June 6, at Community Chapel.
Tyler, who quarterbacked the Husky football team for the last three years, also played basketball and baseball.
As a junior, Tyler completed 110 of 259 pass attempts for the Huskies, for 15 touchdowns and with eight interceptions, for 1,264 yards. He also was Sweet Home’s leading rusher, with 57 carries for 282 yards, one for a touchdown. In his abbreviated six-game senior season, he passed for 888 yards for seven touchdowns, with four interceptions, and was the team’s top rusher with 289 yards on 53 carries.
Tyler has signed to play football at Western Oregon.
Hutchins was the setter for the Sweet Home volleyball team during its rise to prominence in the state over the past four years, and was also a top pitcher for the softball team during that span.
Keynote speaker for the event was former UFC fighter Chael Sonnen, who told the room full of students, parents and coaches that learning doesn’t stop when one leaves school.
Sonnen is often considered one of the greatest all-time mixed martial artists to have never won a UFC championship, having beaten former world champions such as Mauricio Rua, Paulo Filho, Michael Bisping, Nate Marquardt, Wanderlei Silva, and Quinton Jackson.
Sonnen was born in West Linn and was a state wrestling runner-up for West Linn High School. He wrestled for the University of Oregon, where he was an All-American, two-time Pac-10 runner-up, silver medalist at the 2000 Greco-Roman World University Championships, and two-time Dave Schultz Memorial International Greco-Roman winner.
After retiring from sport, Sonnen began working as a MMA analyst for ESPN in 2014, and in 2016 he founded Submission Underground (SUG), his own submission wrestling promotion.
“Today, we are honored to have one of the baddest men on the planet,” said Sweet Home wrestling Coach Steve Thorpe in introducing Sonnen.
Thorpe said he watched Sonnen come up through the wrestling ranks in high school.
“He is never idle,” Thorpe said. “He is a promoter, an entrepreneur, an actor, a commentator, a business owner, and he’s a coach. He’s still coaching wrestling, giving back to the sport that has given him so much. And he’s never too busy to take a picture with a fan.”
After stepping to the podium, Sonnen started by saying “I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been in Oregon my whole life, but I’ve never been to Sweet Home. I’ve only known two things about Sweet Home until today. First off, your city’s got the coolest name of any city in the state, and second, I know you girls and boys are tough. I follow Sweet Home, I read the rankings, I look at the paper like everybody else.”
A major theme in Sonnen’s speech was the power of being able to learn from others.
“I think you will recognize, being 18, having gone through school, that copying sounds a lot like cheating, and it sounds like a very bad thing to do,” he said. “And if you put that in school terms, you’re right.”
“But once you leave school, it can be a very effective thing, to see somebody who has done something that you want to do, identify it, study that person, and copy them.”
Speaking of himself, Sonnen said, “When I think about my own sports career, I don’t remember doing a move, I don’t remember going through a practice, I don’t remember trying to get stronger and get in better shape, with any of my own ideas. I took them from somebody else. Somebody I looked up to, somebody I watched, a coach or mentor. They showed me how to do those things.”
Sonnen said he started wrestling when he was 9 years old and looked up to many people, “Coach Thorpe being one of them.”
But Sonnen also emphasized each individual’s role in shaping their own future.
“I want to tell you guys as you go through life, try to remember that advice is something that will be given to you. Advice is something you take, but decisions you make. You decide what to do with that advice,” he said.
He said that people can choose to get stuck in the cracks, or choose not to.
“Many of you look surprised to be told congratulations. Many of you look surprised to be told ‘good job.’
“Some of you woke up in the morning and went to school, and figured it out, whatever it takes,” Sonnen said. “But I will tell you that behind each one of you there’s a lot of parents, teachers and coaches that had many restless night sleeps wondering if you would make it this far. Because there’s distractions. There’s other things.”
He spoke of the challenges athletes had to deal with during the pandemic.
“This last year, I couldn’t imagine,” he said. “The schedules changing, you’re taking class by zoom, you’re coming in some days. The curriculum changes, whether you can go to practice, whether you can’t go to practice.”
“You could complain, you could get distracted, you could use that. The world’s a big place. You can choose to get stuck in the cracks or you can choose not to. And you can move forward.”
He told the seniors “You’ve got a lot of wonderful people here, wonderful coaches, wonderful parents, and you guys have done a wonderful job.”
The following awards were given out to Husky athletes at the banquet:
In addition to Hutchins and Tyler, Hall of Fame inductees were state championship volleyball team members Bailee Hartsook, Shelbey Nichol and Graci Zanona, who along with Hutchins were key players in winning Sweet Home’s first-ever state championship in volleyball, as well as Tristan Calkins, Jessy Hart and Kelly Ogden.
Recipients of the MOE Award, which recognizes athletes who show humility and courage, putting others first and encouraging others, were Natalie Rodgers, Maren Weld, Jake Fanning and Treyson Smith.
Larry Johnson Sportsmanship Award winners were Teja Abbott, Jessy Hart, Kyle Marler and Austin Marler.
Bruce West Spirit of a Champion awards went to Owen Towry, Jake Fanning, Gavin Walberg, Hunter Calderwood, Jaxsen Brown, Judah Christman and Tristan Spencer.
Coaches Awards, which go to athletes who were key components in making their teams better, were presented to Savannah Hutchins and Treyson Smith.
Receiving the U.S. Marine Corps Distinguished Athlete Award were Graci Zanona, Sicily Neuschwander, Cole Baxter and Chase Lopez.