UWA’s Satterwhite earns ASWA Small College Athlete of the Year
By Spencer Main
Special to The Wetumpka Herald
As lightning shattered the night sky in Livingston, Harry Satterwhite shattered the scoreboard.
The other team’s coaches were shocked. Not by the lightning but by Satterwhite’s performance. They wondered how a player evolves into a star practically overnight.
“A couple of their coaches came up to me and asked, ‘You know what he has been eating in his cereal since last year?” University of West Alabama coach Brett Gilliland said. “They felt like he had developed into a really good player overnight. Like he had grown taller.”
The 6-foot-1 redshirt junior quarterback’s secret was not a simple bowl of oats: It was a daily filling of Cap’n Crunch.
After a season’s worth of highlights and a few dozen bowls of his favorite cereal, Satterwhite earned the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s Small College Athlete of the Year award.
Satterwhite, from Mobile, guided the Tigers to an historic season. West Alabama won its first outright Gulf South Conference championship in five years on the way to a 10-3 finish and made it to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.
“That position demands so much, and Harry answered the bell to what it demands,” Gilliland said.
Satterwhite was one of 10 finalists for the Harlon Hill Trophy, Division II’s highest football award. He passed for a conference-best 3,400 yards and 26 touchdowns with only eight interceptions. He was named all-conference, but not the league’s players of the year. He wasn’t even aware that a state small college athlete award existed.
“It did kind of surprise me,” Satterwhite said. “I wasn’t even aware that it was an award. … After hearing about it, it’s really cool.”
When other schools saw an undersized athlete, Gilliland saw shades of Brett Favre, Satterwhite’s favorite player.
“I’d say Brett Favre is not the biggest guy,” Gilliland said. “Overall toughness and competitiveness, I could see in the two.”
Satterwhite was driven to take the Tigers as far as they could go.
“I don’t feel any extra pressure with any award,” Satterwhite said. “I just take it like I took it last year. I’m just trying to help the team win.”
Gilliland spent the season celebrating Satterwhite’s shining success.
“He’s definitely accomplished and continuing to accomplish what we hoped for him,” Gilliland said. “We’re very proud of him, the whole team and the program.”