2012-2013 MSA Sports Male Athlete of the Year – DEVIN WILSON

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, June 28, 2013 | 10:38 PM

Devin Wilson likes to debate many topics and hopes to be a lawyer someday. As for the mystery of who is the best male athlete in the WPIAL, Wilson took the case and built a mountain of evidence for himself.

Now the verdict: Devin Wilson, the jury of MSA Sports finds you the winner of the WPIAL Male Athlete of the Year. Your sentence is to spend the next four years playing Division I basketball at Virginia Tech.

Wilson was an easy winner of the award this year, finishing his career at Montour High School with a number of top invidual and team accomplishments in the sports of football and basketball. And there is no gag order for anyone at Montour to talk about this case.

“The Devin Wilson era is over at Montour,” said Montour football coach Lou Cerro. “It’s tough to see him go because he did a lot for our school in his time.”

Montour basketball coach Adam Kaufman said, “I’m certainly going to miss him and that goes without saying.”

Wilson had a senior year to remember, setting WPIAL records in football and leading Montour to a WPIAL title in basketball. He was the only athlete in the WPIAL named to the MSA Sports Elite 11 all-star football team and All Netters basketball team. Wilson was also named MSA Sports basketball player of the year. And this is rather impressive: Wilson was a four-year starter in both sports.

In football, Wilson was a standout receiver and defensive back. He finished his career as the all-time WPIAL leader in both receptions with 230 and receiving yardage with 3,192. As a senior, he was everything to Montour’s offense. He had 65 receptions for 1,083 yards, but also played running back and had 489 yards on 77 attempts.

“I don’t think I ever got mad at him in all the years he was here,” Cerro said. “He came to work every day, did what he was supposed to do, was never late, was always on time. Kids like that are hard to come by these days.”

In basketball, Wilson, who is signed to play next year at Virginia Tech, played point guard and averaged 17 points a game. He scored more than 1,400 career points.

While the personal statistics were impressive, so was Wilson’s ability to help teams win. During his career, Wilson won two WPIAL basketball titles, one WPIAL football championship, played in a WPIAL football championship game and helped Montour to two appearances in PIAA basketball championship games. During his four years as a starter, the basketball teams went 72-18 and the football teams 33-7.

“All the WPIAL championship games stick out in my mind for football and basketball,” Wilson said. “But probably the WPIAL [basketball] final my senior was most memorable.”
In that game, Montour knocked off perennial WPIAL power Chartiers Valley.

“It’s memorable just because I played with all my [senior] friends who I grew up with and just because we were down at the half and we just kept fighting,” Wilson said.

Wilson showed enough talent in both football and basketball to earn Division I scholarship offers in both sports. For a while, he thought he would play football in college. But by basketball season, things changed. He decided basketball was his sport. As the season progressed, more Division I colleges became interested.

“During football season, I really thought I would play football in college,” Wilson said. “Some offers didn’t work out the way I wanted and basketball schools started showing more interest. I realized every day I was coming to basketball that I really enjoyed my teammates, coaches and really enjoyed just working out every day with basketball. I realized if I picked basketball, even if things don’t work in college, I can say that I played what I wanted to play.”

Wilson left an everlasting impression at Montour. When asked if he would like to say anything about his career, he said, “I’d just like to thank all the coaches for making me who I am sports-wise, and in life as well. I’d like to thank my parents and my brother, too.”