{"id":37263,"date":"2018-08-12T21:24:41","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T01:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/?p=37263"},"modified":"2018-08-14T17:47:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T21:47:56","slug":"best-of-the-best-round-1-gerard-warren-vs-leon-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/?p=37263","title":{"rendered":"Best of the Best Round 1: Gerard Warren vs Leon Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"breadcrumb\">\n<div id=\"crumbs\">Round one in competitive sports usually features mismatches in most tournaments of 32. But in the Best of the Best series, round one is literally a celebrity death match. Each first round matchup in the Best Player of All Time series is literally star-studded. They are all studs at their positions, and their star statuses most times led to collegiate and pro football careers. However, this is the Best of the Best High School Player, so we\u2019ll just highlight what they did here in Northeast Florida as Preps players on the gridiron.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/challonge.com\/vwhswt7f\/module\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Leon-Washington.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-37291\" src=\"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Leon-Washington-300x256.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Leon-Washington-300x256.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Leon-Washington-768x654.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Leon-Washington-640x545.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Leon-Washington.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It took seven years before another Mr. Football honoree was named to an athlete from Northeast Florida. Fittingly after 7 years ( the biblical number of completion) the award went to the ultimate complete player. Leon Washington won the prestigous prep award in 2002 excelling at running back, cornerback and wide receiver at Jackson High School.\u00a0 That season, he rushed for 2,437 yards and 28 touchdowns as well as defensively, had 88 tackles and 3 interceptions a senior. He earned Florida Times Union Player of the Year honors\u2026rated the No. 3 prospect overall in the state of Florida by the Orlando Sentinel. The No. 1 cornerback in the country and #9 player overall as rated by Rivals100.com. SuperPrep\u2019s Top 100 nationally, he was a deadly kick and punt returner in addition to his other skills, returning three punts and one kickoff for touchdowns.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37322\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37322\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Gerard-Warren.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-37322 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Gerard-Warren-300x241.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Gerard-Warren-300x241.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Gerard-Warren-768x616.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Gerard-Warren-640x513.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Gerard-Warren.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37322\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">DON BURK photo via Gerard Warren Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Gerard \u201cBig Money\u201d Warren who is affectionately nick named because of his potential as a\u00a0 pro football player, was a standout defensive tackle for Union County. Regarded as one of the nation&#8217;s elite defensive linemen in 1996, Warren was a\u00a0 consensus first-team All-America selection&#8230; Named to SuperPrep All-America Team, their Dixie Defensive Player of the Year and ranked among the nation&#8217;s top eight defensive linemen by that publication. He was a first-team All-State (3A) selection for two seasons. Credited with 36 quarterback sacks in his career, Warren led the Tigers to state championships in 1994, \u201995 and \u201996. Union County High School went 49-4 in his four years at the school. He is the only player on the Best of the Best list with three state championship rings.<\/p>\n<p>[su_divider]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n(function(d, s, id){\n  var js,\n      fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],\n      r = Math.floor(new Date().getTime() \/ 1000000);\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.async=1;\n  js.src = \"https:\/\/www.opinionstage.com\/assets\/loader.js?\" + r;\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, 'script', 'os-widget-jssdk'));\n<\/script><\/p>\n<div id=\"os-widget-2515382\" class=\"os_poll\" data-path=\"\/polls\/2515382\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Round one in competitive sports usually features mismatches in most tournaments of 32. But in the Best of the Best series, round one is literally a celebrity death match. Each first round matchup in the Best Player of All Time series is literally star-studded. They are all studs at their positions, and their star statuses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[514,303],"class_list":["post-37263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-time-capsule","tag-best-of-the-best","tag-top-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/warren-v-washington-e1534123172516.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}