Jonathan Bornstein - 2006 MLS Rookie Of The Year...

As expected by most pundits, columnists, analysts and fans, Jonathan Bornstein was named the 2006 Gatorade Rookie of the Year. Congrats Jonathan! Bornstein, from UCLA, was picked by Chivas USA in the fourth round of the 2006 SuperDraft. Yes, your club had a chance to select him but Houston thought Andre Schmid would pan out better. Columbus liked Dayton O'Brian more. New England placed more faith in Leandro de Oliveira. (I'll save you the time, none of those players are with the team that drafted them anymore.) Bornstein beat out the 57 of his fellow class who are still with the league for the annual award.

I'm always interested in the history of awards like this. So below you'll see the past winners and the club that drafted them:
2005 Michael Parkhurst (NE)
2004 Clint Dempsey (NE)
2003 Damani Ralph (CHI)
2002 Kyle Martino (CLB)
2001 Rodrigo Faria (NY)
2000 Carlos Bocanegra (CHI)
1999 Jay Heaps (MIA)
1998 Ben Olsen (DC)
1997 Mike Duhaney (TB)
1996 Steve Ralston (TB)

An interesting fact you can amaze your soccer loving friends with, New England has the four former rookies of the year ('96 Ralston, '99 Heaps, '04 Dempsey & '05 Parkhurst.)

As the college season winds down it'll be fun to think about who could win this award in 12 months time. At this point it is tough to say which underclassmen will be joining, but looking at the list of seniors to the right you'll see some strong candidates like: Michael Harrington out of UNC, Steven Curfman from Wake, Adam Cristman from UVA, Jay Needham from SMU, Greg Dalby from Notre Dame, Chris Loftus from Duke and Frederico Moojen from Clemson. There are many more out there and with the younger crew that will leave school early, or skip college entirely, you never know what you're going to get once the combine comes around.