Southwood’s Cole Winer wins Craft Mental Attitude Award

By Eric Christiansen

Southwood’s Cole Winer was still feeling the sting of his team’s loss to Indianapolis

Lutheran in the IHSAA Class 1A State Finals Saturday, March 26, when he was named the Ray Craft Mental Attitude Award winner for Class 1A.

The recipient of the award was selected by the IHSAA Executive Committee and was nominated by his principal and coach, and excelled in mental attitude, athletic ability, scholarship, and leadership.

Winer is the son of Adam and Kelli Winer.

After receiving the honor, he deflected the personal achievement and talked about his teammates.

“I’m just so proud of this team,” Winer said as we received the award. “I love every single one of them boys. I’m just super proud of our guys. We just never gave up. We started out 0-5 (and) things weren’t looking good. We started to play tough and stopped letting people push us around. That’s what got us here.”

Winer’s parents added how proud they were of their son.

“We’re super proud,” Adam Winer said. “Just trying to soak in the whole season. Number one, the boys playing together (Cole and brother Will), but this group of coaches … this whole team was just so fun to watch.

“They got into that hole in the beginning of the year and they didn’t give up. It was amazing to watch and come to this point.”

Kelli Winer added, “Cole is planning to attend Liberty University and we’re excited for him to start a new journey. He had an awesome ride and we’re super proud of him.”

Winer is the fourth Southwood student-athlete to win the Ray Craft Mental Attitude Award.

First was Kolby Halderman for baseball in 2003, followed by Mallory Harness for volleyball in 2009, and Carson Blair for basketball in 2018.