Turns out, Natalie Norris was right all along.
For the better part of the past three years, Norris, the girls’ basketball coach at Camden High, preached to anyone within the sound of her voice that Lady Bulldog forward Joyce Edwards was best female high school player in the country. Wednesday, in a secret, star-studded ceremony at CHS, Gatorade made Norris’ claim official as it named Edwards as its Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year for the 2023-24 season.
For the first time in the history of the Gatorade National Girls Player of the Year, the honor went to a student-athlete from South Carolina.
The 6-foot-2 Edwards, who signed to continue her academic and athletic endeavors with the University of South Carolina in November, was presented with the glass and brass Gatorade trophy by current Dallas Wings forward and two-time WNBA All-Star Satou Sabally.
The latest — and biggest — honor can be piled on to the long list of accolades and awards which have come Edwards’ way over her six-year varsity career.
Thinking she was entering the Camden High Wellness Center to work on her shooting with her father, Charlie, for her playing in three postseason All-American games, Joyce Edwards was, instead, greeted by Sabally as she walked into the gym. With a bank of still and television cameras filming the moment, Edwards gasped, put her hands over her mouth in amazement and doubled over. Moments later, family members and teammates, filed out of the adjoining trainers’ room to join the celebration.
“I was shocked,” said the senior forward. “At first, I was like, ‘Why are all these people here?’
“I came in to shoot; I’ve been shooting every day this week for the McDonald’s All-American Game (in Houston today.) I looked saw the Gatorade National Player of the Year award. I had seen it before on Instagram. That was extremely shocking. It left me speechless … amazing. I don’t even have words for it.”
As she waited for Edwards’ arrival, Norris paced in front of the doors leading into the Wellness Center before giving the gathered crowd the heads-up that Edwards was on her way. Norris, who learned that Edwards was to be presented the honor the week before, never doubted that the award would go to the best female high school hoopster in the nation.
“I say it all the time and I mean it,” Norris said after Camden won the 2022-23 AAA state championship in Aiken, “I think Joyce is the best player in the country and showed it today.”
Edwards, the three-time South Carolina AAA girls’ basketball player of the year, was named a finalist for the Gatorade National Girls Player of the Year honor two weeks ago. She beat out Kennedy Smith, a Southern Cal signee, and Jaloni Cambridge, who will play her college ball at The Ohio State University. All three finalists were tabbed as Gatorade Girls Basketball Player of the Year in their home states which, for Smith and Cambridge, are California and Florida, respectively.
To be tabbed the nation’s best high school player — after Gatorade honored Edwards with its honor for the Palmetto State for the second straight year — was something which she never expected or played for whenever she took the floor.
“I’m just grateful,” she said while addressing a gathered throng of media personnel. “As some of you may know, I don’t necessarily play for awards, but the fact that people see my hard work just means a lot to me.
“Getting this award out of all the girls’ basketball players in the nation ... it just says something to me that my hard work has been paying off. It’s fulfilling to me as a person.”
The leading scorer in the history of Camden basketball — boys and girls — with 3,952 points in her six-year Lady Bulldogs career in which she earned AAA All-State honors after each season, Edwards helped lead Camden to its second consecutive AAA state title in March with a 44-22 win over Wren, which the Lady Dogs defeated for the crown for the second time in as many seasons. In this year’s title pairing played at the Florence Center, Edwards scored 27 points while grabbing 20 rebounds.
As a senior, Edwards averaged 31.3 points, 13.3 rebounds, 4.5 steals and 4.0 assists per game while being named as MaxPreps South Carolina Girls Player of the Year. Following her junior academic year, MaxPreps named Edwards as its 2022-23 National Female Athlete of the Year, an honor also accorded to her by USA Today.
While Norris has never been shy when it comes to extolling Edwards’ talents on and off the basketball court, Edwards’ athleticism was not confined to Camden, the state of South Carolina and high school and college basketball fans and recruiting services. Seated to Edwards’ left was Sabally, who did some research on her own to see the teenager who she would present the trophy to on Wednesday.
Color Sabally, a standout at Oregon, as impressed with what she saw of Edwards on film. The 6-foot-4 forward said she never hesitated when Gatorade presented her the chance to come to Camden and be a central part of the ceremony.
“It was important for me because she is, literally, the future of basketball sitting right here,” she said while smiling at and then talking to Edwards. “This is a big honor for me to be handing over an honor like that.
“I’ve watched some film on here and some interviews and she is just an amazing person on and off the court. Being able to present this award to a person like you, Joyce, is very special. I’m really excited about your college career.”
Sabally, a four-year WNBA veteran, then gave a scouting report on Edwards to the high schooler.
“She’s really explosive,” Sabally said before directing her remarks to Edwards. “You’re super athletic and you play the game the right way. Whoever says they want to get better on defense and who already plays defense like her with her length and using her arms well and rebounding, she’s going to go a long way.”
Edwards burst onto the national scene as an eighth-grader during a summer in which she and several of her CHS teammates won an AAU national championship in Florida. Shortly thereafter, she was offered a grant-in-aid from South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley. From there and attention and offers started piling up with schools ranging from Stanford to Florida and including Ivy League institutions vying for her academic and athletic services.
With all the notoriety came other schools, sometimes called athletic factories, who tried to get Edwards to transfer from Camden to play for their programs. Edwards never budged as she shrugged off such opportunities to stay with the girls and teammates she grew up with.
“I’ve been playing with these girls since elementary school,” she said when the question was raised to her. “I started rec (basketball), obviously, my first AAU team was here, I played high school here. I’ve known these girls for, at least, nine years.
“We became a family. They are all like my sisters. I knew I could not leave because of the family dynamic, not just of my teammates, but the whole community of Camden and the support and watching the gyms being empty to now being packed. It’s just crazy the progress. I wouldn’t have been able to see that going to a school like IMG or Monteverde (Academy.)
“Just building a legacy at the plate where I was raised was very important to me.”
In addition to basketball, Edwards had the chance to possibly leave home and play soccer somewhere other than in Camden. Edwards was the leading scorer for the Lady Bulldogs on the pitch last year and is well on her way to being the team’s leading scorer again this spring.
“Everybody always says that I was a better soccer player than I am a basketball player,” she said. “I had the opportunity to take soccer seriously and go to Europe and train. I had multiple coaches come up to me and say, ‘I’ll give you (a soccer) offer, but I know that you are only going for basketball.”
The Gatorade National Girls Player of the Year award also takes into account academics and community involvement. Edwards, an all-state selection in soccer and volleyball in addition to basketball, sparkles in those two areas, as well, and carries a 5.1 grade point average.
The fact that this honor took into account more than athletics meant a lot to Joyce Edwards who was humbled by the honor and the attention it brought not just to her, but to her teammates, the CHS girls’ basketball program, Camden High School and the community, in general. More importantly, though, she moved the spotlight off herself and to her parents, Rasheedah and Charlie Edwards.
“I have to thank my parents. I give it all to them for their support,” she said. “They raised me, they got me into sports, they made me stay humble and they made me make sure that I got my work done … I couldn’t have done it without them.
“Yes, I’m grateful, obviously, that I received the award but honor (to her parents) because they worked hard trying to raise me. It’s good that other people see me as a well-rounded person.”
