Past Winners

Premier Players hosted its first charitable awards dinner in January 2011. Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett edged out a very narrow victory over Iowa QB Ricky Stanzi to become the first Premier Player of College Football award winner.

Many wonder why Cam Newton was not the victor in that first poll but, we at Premier Players did not select the winner – The fans did! All our online elections are 100% fan-driven, and the player with the most votes is the winner.

Since the first event around college football playoff game, Premier Players continues to add various sports polls to its site for fans to decide the Premier Player each season. In 2018, Premier Players held its first on-field competition – The Premier Players of Soccer – for teams to compete for the award. Just like the polls, Premier Players will add more tournaments each year, allowing middle schoolers through adults to compete for the 19lb hardware.

Please take a look at our past award winners. Hopefully, some of them were your favorite players. If not, please plan to vote and campaign for your ideal candidate to win our award.

Our Past Winners In 2012, North Carolina State TE Asa Watson (second front left) became the first recipient of the Freddie Solomon Community Spirit Award and Memphis LB Akeem Davis, second from right, became the first recipient of the Lee Roy Selmon Community Spirit Award.

Our Past Winners Jake Lemoine, P, helped The Houston Cougars to a No. 11 national ranking and notch one of the best seasons in its program history, tying a program-record with 48 wins and earning its first trip to the NCAA postseason since 2008.

Our Past Winners 2013 Big Ten Player of The Year, Maggie Lucas, G, lead the Penn State Lady Lions to an undefeated season at home and an overall 26-6 season.

Ryan Mallett Premier Players Trophy web 2A small

Football, or any sport, would not bring excitement to millions of people each year if it wasn’t for the fans. Yet, when it came to determining the best players in the country, the fans were mostly left out of the selection process – until now.

The Premier Player Trophy is an award presented to the athlete the fans voted as the best player in NCAA college football, basketball, baseball, softball, and hockey. A poll is released at the beginning of the college sports season with 20 of the best players for fans to follow. In mid-October to early November, up to five more great performing players may be added to the poll while nonperformers are deleted from the poll. Fans then have until the last conference championship game to vote the Premier Player of the season.

Here’s what one of the best in pro and college football, the late Lee Roy Selmon, had to say https://youtu.be/7jLk-p0SGAI?t=58s about our award.

Below is the Making of The Premier Player Trophy video:

Short interviews with College & NFL HOF Lee Roy Selmon, first award recipient Ryan Mallett, and Carnell Moore, founder of The Premier Players Sports Foundation: