Wakulla High School Football and Baseball Player Haden Klees Voted 2024 ITG Next Florida Male Athlete of the Year
After a stellar senior season on both the gridiron and diamond, Wakulla High School two-sport standout Haden Klees has been voted the ITG Next Florida 2024 Male Athlete of the Year.
Klees amassed 42.52% of the possible votes to receive the honor, which came over three additional finalists: Miami Columbus basketball player Cameron Boozer, Norland football player Ennio Yapoor, and Naples football player Shawn Simeon.
Klees, a two-star Samford signee, helped lead Wakulla to an impressive 11-1 overall record during the 2023 football season as the team’s signal-caller. Wakulla made an appearance in the Class 2S regional semifinal, in which they lost their lone game of the year to Florida High 42-28. The QB led the Wakulla offense to an average of 40.7 points per game and eight games of more than 40 points.
For the season, Klees appeared in all 12 games for the War Eagles, posting an impressive stat line of 61.2% of passes completed with 3,575 yards passing and a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 50-to-3. Klees also held a QB rating of 130 and rushed for 355 yards and four touchdowns on 53 attempts.
Taking a deeper look at Klees’ senior season on the gridiron, he went the first five games of the year without throwing an interception, had five different contests with at least 300 yards passing, and had six games of at least five touchdown passes. Some of those came in victories over teams such as Mosley and Taylor County, with no performance arguably better than his showing in a 48-7 win over Munroe. Klees completed 16 of 21 passes for 350 yards and five touchdowns in the contest against the Bobcats.
To put the finishing touch on his high school football career, Klees concluded his time in a War Eagles uniform with a 28-8 combined record as a starter at quarterback, having led Wakulla to three playoff appearances in as many years.
Klees owns a stat line over that span which features a combined completion percentage of 61.5% for 7,850 yards passing and a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 93-to-10. He also rushed for 707 yards and nine more scores on 103 attempts. The signal-caller held a 130.2 QB rating for his Wakulla career and passed for an average of 224.3 yards per game with 2.7 touchdowns per game.
Klees’ overall high school sports career at Wakulla did not stop on the gridiron in the fall, as he suited up for the War Eagles in the spring for his senior campaign on the baseball field.
Once again, Klees’ impact was evident for a Wakulla team that finished the season with a 21-6-1 overall record and reached the Class 4A regional semifinals. The War Eagles outscored opponents a combined 212-104 for the season, and Klees was a big factor behind Wakulla’s offensive success.
One of Wakulla’s top hitters, Klees slashed a combined .361/.485/.614 offensively during the 2024 season. He hit four home runs with 21 RBIs, stole 10 bases with nine doubles, and had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 26-to-17 with a 1.099 on-base slugging percentage.
Included in Klees’ baseball season were 11 multi-hit games and eight matchups of at least two RBIs. This featured a season high of three hits, which he achieved three separate times against Taylor County, North Florida Christian, and Florida High.
Kless’ greatest performance of the year came in a 9-2 win over Maclay on April 23. He went 2 for 3 with a home run, three runs scored, and four RBIs, a season high.
Congratulations once again on a phenomenal year, as well as overall high school career, to Wakulla High School football and baseball player Haden Klees, the ITG Next Florida 2024 Male Athlete of the Year.
