WATCH: Jerome Bettis Honors Baldwin's Brown as Player of the Year
Brown, a junior, earned the annual WPXI high school football award.
High school football fans in western Pennsylvania have spoken, and the winner of the 2011 WPXI Wendy's Skylights Player of the Year award is Baldwin High School junior running back Dorian Brown.
Each of this year's WPXI Player of the Week winners were invited to the news station's studio in Pittsburgh's Summer Hill neighborhood on Friday for a taping of the Jerome Bettis Show, which will air on WPXI at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
The Baldwin-Whitehall Patch attended the taping and got an inside look at the filiming of the show, which included an award presentation for Brown, who earned the most fan votes.
WPXI's veteran sports reporter John Fedko came to Baldwin High Stadium on Sept. 28 to honor Brown with his Player of the Week award after Brown rushed for 278 yards and two touchdowns on 34 carries, including a game-winning 80-yard TD with less than two minutes to play, to lead the Highlanders to a 21-14 victory over Thomas Jefferson High School on Sept. 23.
Fedko attended the Bettis taping on Friday to greet all of the weekly winners. Brown was there with his family, as was Baldwin's head varsity football coach Jim Wehner.
WPXI's Rich Walsh served as co-host of the Jerome Bettis Show.
Brown emerged as one of the WPIAL's best players this season. He amassed exactly 1,200 rushing yards on 197 carries (a 6.1-yard average), including 10 touchdowns. He also caught 11 passes for 78 yards and one TD and returned eight kickoffs for 223 yards (a 27.9-yard average), including a 96-yard TD return in Baldwin's 35-10 win over Fox Chapel Area High School on Sept. 2. He had 1,501 all-purpose yards this year for an average of 166.8 all-purpose yards per game.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also recognized Brown as its male High School Athlete of the Week on Sept. 29.
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