U.S. men’s U-23 national team forward Josh Wolff and U.S. women’s national team and U-21 forward Cindy Parlow are the 1998 recipients of the inaugural Chevrolet/U.S. Soccer Youth Player of the Year awards. The annual awards, which have been instigated to highlight up-and-coming stars within U.S. Soccer, were presented at a press conference in Richmond, Va., prior to the NCAA Division I Men’s Final Four. Wolff is a central figure on the U.S. U-23 team, which currently has its sights set on the 2000 Olympics in Australia. Although he only appeared in four games for the Under-23s in 1998, Wolff burst onto the U.S. soccer scene with the Chicago Fire of MLS by scoring 8 goals in 14 games for the double champions (MLS Cup ’98 and 1998 U.S. Open Cup winners). Most of those goals came as a second-half substitute for the Fire and earned him crowd favorite status for his frequent late-game heroics. Prior to his breakthrough with the Fire, the 21-year-old from Stone Mountain, Ga., scored 12 goals in 18 games to lead the Project-40 A-League squad in scoring. For his efforts in 1998, Wolff was rewarded with a call-up to the U.S. national team training camp in early November, where he was the youngest player on the roster. “This is obviously a terrific honor,” said Wolff. “This has been an exciting year for me, and being the first person to win the Chevrolet Youth Player of the Year award really caps it off.” For Parlow, awards have become a way of life. Recently honored for the second consecutive year as the Missouri Athletic Club Collegiate Player of the Year, Parlow was the obvious choice for the female Chevrolet/U.S. Soccer Youth Player of the Year award. Parlow is not only a standout with the U.S. women’s U-21 team, where last August she led the team to a hard-fought second place finish in the prestigious Nordic Cup in Holland (scoring two of the USA’s four goals), but also a star on the senior team. Still just 20 years old, the University of North Carolina star already has 17 goals in 42 full national team appearances, including three last year. “I’ve played in a lot of games, but I’m still a young player on the Women’s national team, so it’s nice to be singled out by the U.S. Soccer family for an award like this,” said Parlow. “But, clearly the focus for the entire team for the next six months is the 1999 Women’s World Cup. Everyone has one award we are shooting for: to be world champions again.” Criteria for the Chevrolet/U.S. Soccer Youth Player of the Year award was broken into four categories: (a) competing at an exceptional youth national team level during the previous calendar year; (b) exhibiting decorum on and off the field which reflects well on U.S. Soccer; (c) contributing toward the growth, development and popularization of soccer in the United States; and (d) exhibiting potential to succeed at high standard in years to come. Voting for the award was representative of U.S. Soccer’s General Secretariat, including department heads from within the Federation’s headquarters, as well as current U.S. national team head coaches and the chairman of the national team’s committee.