Illinois Year in Review: Male athlete of the year Devon Witherspoon

Aaron Henry sat down with Devon Witherspoon last summer.
The message from the then Illinois defensive backs coach was simple. Witherspoon was “sitting on a lottery ticket.”
“His feel? Unbelievable,” Henry said. “Down the field strength with the
ball in the air? Incredible. Ball skills? Elite. Trash talking? Elite. He checked every box.”
Except for one. The same box that made Witherspoon a zero-star recruit. The 6-foot cornerback needed to get closer to 180 pounds than the 170 he was playing after missing games in 2020 and 2021 because of late-season injuries — the result of taking hits in cold weather and wearing down.
“He took it personally and took it as a challenge, and six months changed his life,” Henry said.
That was Witherspoon’s approach his entire Illinois career. Everything was a challenge. Embracing that helped turn him into the best cornerback in the Big Ten, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft to the Seattle Seahawks and now as The News-Gazette’s Illinois Male Athlete of the Year for the 2022-23 school year.
“What a lot of people miss on is the size of the young man’s heart and his burning desire to be elite,” Henry said in relation to the negatives other programs found in Witherspoon’s size coming out of high school. “Devon has something innately in him. He doesn’t want to be good. We’re in the meeting room, and he wants to get 100 on the DB test we take every Friday. He wants to be the best basketball player. He wants to be the best bowler. Any time there’s a competition, he wants to win.”
Not that he was actually the best bowler. Henry said Witherspoon might be taxed trying to bowl a 100 game at the Smith Center lanes. But you wouldn’t know that before facing him given the level of confidence and trash talk.
“You compound that burning desire and competitive nature to be really, really eite on top of his athletic ability and his innate ability to run and flip his hips and play really violent and physical on top of him having a chip on his shoulder,” Henry said. “That’s how you get a first round, top-five pick.”
Henry knew that was in Witherspoon’s future after Illinois beat Nebraska in late October. There were flashes in training camp. Then several more early in the season. Witherspoon locking up the Cornhuskers’ Trey Palmer was different. Palmer entered that game having caught 19 passes for 458 yards in his previous three games.Witherspoon limited him to one catch for one yard.
“I’m teasing him like, ‘Don’t let this dude go off on us for 200 against you bro,’” Henry said. “He took it very, very personal. ... It wasn’t until the Nebraska game, for me, that in my mind I knew this kid wasn’t coming back. He was going to be a first-round draft pick.”
Scott Richey
Honor Roll: The News-Gazette’s Illinois Male Athletes of the Year
Year Athlete Sport
2023 Devon Witherspoon Football
2022 Kofi Cockburn Basketball
2021 Ayo Dosunmu Basketball
2020 Ayo Dosunmu Basketball
2019 Devin Quinn Track and field
2018 Bren Spillane Baseball
2017 Malcolm Hill Basketball
2016 Isaiah Martinez Wrestling
2015 Isaiah Martinez Wrestling
2014 Jesse Delgado Wrestling
2013 Justin Parr Baseball
2012 Andrew Riley Track and field
2011 Mikel Leshoure Football
2010 Scott Langley Golf
2009 Paul Ruggeri Gymnastics
2008 Rashard Mendenhall Football
2007 Kevin Anderson Tennis
2006 Justin Spring Gymnastics
2005 Luther Head Basketball
2004 Brian Wilson Tennis
2003 Matt Lackey Wrestling