Student reporter, Miguel Hernandez, interviewed Matthew and wrote this story.
On December 15th, 2025, Matthew Wintje, a senior at WHSAD, received an award called the MVP Scholar-Athletes award. He is one of the 55 students who receive the award across the 5 boroughs. They received the award and a dinner in their honor at Yankee Stadium.
What is the Scholar-Athlete Award?
The Scholar-Athlete Award is an award given to students across the 5 boroughs of New York City. 11 students from each borough are selected to receive this award. To receive the award, they have to meet certain criteria. They have to achieve at least an 80% GPA throughout all four years and to have participated in at least two sports. To have either of those is an accomplishment in itself. Managing to be one of the 11 students in Brooklyn to receive this is a big honor. Matthew participated in both track and cross country as his two sports.
Shaky Start
Matthew first heard about track in the 9th grade through his science teacher, Mr. Giambrone, the track coach at that time. Matthew wanted to join some sort of team during high school, so he went along with track. Matthew had a rough start in the beginning.
Of course with starting something new, there would be struggles. There would be races where he would trip, or make mistakes. Despite that, Matthew would continue to show up and practice. He would receive tons of support from his teammates, pushing him to his limits. Matthew said, “I was able to take constructive criticism well, as you WILL receive such in track, suggestions and comments on how to perform better, 1 on 1 guides on how to do a certain technique, and just lots and lots of practice.” Teammates and coaches would shout at him to continue and motivate him to work harder. These kinds of things would help lead up to Matthew winning his first race during his sophomore year.
This was not the end of his struggles, as cross country provided a new challenge. During his first race Matthew found out he really wasn’t prepared and felt like he wasn’t built for the sport as he didn’t do long distance running very well. Again, Matthew would persevere and continue to make progress and get better with every time he practiced and ran.
Results
All this concludes with Matthew winning the award. Matthew feels very proud, achieving this award. He feels like he’s recognized for all his hard work and dedication. When asked whether he’s considering running track after high school, he responded “I’m not sure what the future holds, or how busy or free I will be in college. I’d definitely like to possibly run track again while in college if possible”.