An All-Star ethics debate

We are having a bit of debate up here, and I'm hoping you guys can shed some light.
PS., some parts of this story made national headlines because it involved a former pro athlete, so if you figure it out, I'd rather you not out the area on here. PMs are fine though.

Anywho, we're trying to decide the MVP for our football all-star team. Player A is a pretty good athlete and has been for his entire varsity career. Technically he's a running back, but he really broke out as a receiver this year since there are two other talented backs on the team. He has great speed, but needs to be in the open field to really break off runs (hence his transformation into a Z-back). He put up great numbers.

Player B is the superior athlete and will probably play at a Division I school. His father was a Divsion I player and Pro-Bowler, and took over the team a year ago. Sonny put up very good numbers as a quarterback except....
Long before the season even started there were rumors about recruiting. The school finally had to do an investigation, found "someone" guilty (the document has remained sealed) of attempting to recruit players and no member of the actual team was deemed ineligible (even though at least one kid who transferred gave his address as an empty hunting cabin). This was the program's second violation since the father took over.
After a long court battle the team, though undefeated and ranked in the state top five, were unable to continue playing. The father stepped down as a last-ditch effort to keep the team in the playoffs, but the school still had to drop out.

So, who is our MVP? The kid who is one step away from being a top-tier athlete? Or the top-tier athlete whose own program was investigated and found out to be guilty?

 

Who was the best player? IMO, MVP means the best player. Don't take an award away from a kid because his father refused to be honorable.

 

If the award is "Player of the Year," you can certainly factor off-field factors into the equation. But you also don't want to look like you're just a bunch of haters.

 

I know the situation. Been following it.

If I was on staff, I would go with the quarterback.

I would hate doing it, but that's what I would do.

 

I used to spend a lot of time fretting and even losing sleep over these all-area team decisions. A former editor told me to forget everything else - schedule, team, scandal, recruiting, everything else - and just choose the best football player. I find it helps to imagine I'm putting together a pick-up football team from all the kids in the area and the player of the year is the one I'd pick first.

 

Best football player? Or player who had the best season?
Because the two are often different.
We go with who had the better season.

 

I suppose my language was a bit vague, and you raised a good point. I would consider the stats and what I saw and, at the end of the year, pretend I was choosing an all-star team for a pick-up game. Who would I pick first? That's almost always going to be the one who you think would, on the basis of what he had done that season, make the biggest difference in the game.

 

why punish the QB for something his father did? If we was the best player, name him the best player.

 

Coldcat: This is just a thought. He had a great season. There were some terrific players around him who helped make that happen. Some of them were recruited.

Now, I would still pick him, but that's one way to view it.

 

I wouldn't let off the field stuff factor in, at least in this case. Whichever of the two had the superior season is the way to go.

 

Usually, this is how I feel. However, off the field stuff up here usually means grades or suspension for something minor. We've never had anything close to this level, that's why we're debating.

 

Is it a player of the year or MVP? If a team cheated to make the playoffs, then no performance was valuable enough. If it's a player of the year, then go off this year's stats and pick the best one.