Collegiate High 4-star prospect Gradey Dick transferring to Sunrise Christian Academy
.JPG "Collegiate’s Gradey Dick")
The Gatorade Player of the Year is on the move.
Gradey Dick, a 4-star high school sophomore formerly of Wichita Collegiate, announced his transfer to Sunrise Christian Academy Friday via Twitter. He will play just north of Wichita in Bel Aire at one of the best high school programs in the country.
Dick holds scholarship offers from many of the elite college basketball programs in the region, including Kansas, Wichita State and Oklahoma State. He now joins a team that has produced more than 75 Division I players in the past few years.
The move follows a few others around the Wichita area, players who have recently switched to Sunrise. Newton’s Ty Berry, who was also up to be named Gatorade Player of the Year, made the move about this time last year. Eisenhower’s Jordan Vincent recently announced he would join Sunrise’s post-graduate team. And former Heights standout Jaxon Pillich announced he would be returning to Wichita to play for the post-grad team, too.
Sunrise coach Luke Barnwell said Dick and his family approached him with interest in coming to Sunrise. Barnwell said he always admired his game but adherent to KSHSAA rules could not and did not recruit him to leave Collegiate.
“It’s kind of a crazy blessing,” Barnwell said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I gave him some information on the school, told him we were going to be really good and that he is a heck of a player.”
Barnwell said Dick did his research on some of the other programs around the country that are similar to Sunrise, with the possibility of returning to Collegiate still on the table.
“He knows what we’re about through a lot of people that they know who have been here,” Barnwell said. “I think he’s as good of a kid as he is a player, and that’s really important to us.”
At Collegiate this past season, Dick led the Spartans to a 21-3 record. They won a Class 3A sub-state championship game against Cheney and reached the state semifinals after a 58-46 victory over Colby in the 3A quarterfinals. It was the Spartans’ sixth semifinal in the past decade.
Dick averaged 20.4 points, five rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.6 steals this season but didn’t get a shot at a Kansas state championship — all Kansas state tournaments were canceled following the quarterfinal rounds because of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collegiate was to play Beloit (21-3) in the semifinals.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 11:32 AM.