Walter Clayton Jr. continues to earn honors for his incredible 2025 season. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Florida Gators announced on Wednesday that Walter Clayton Jr. has been named the SEC’s Roy F. Kramer Male Athlete of the Year.
Clayton Jr. in 2025 recorded the most productive and most decorated individual season in University of Florida history. He recorded a UF-record 713 points that helped lead the Gators to their 2025 National Championship win. He accumulated 20 blocks and 46 steals along the way to earning first-team All-American honors, earning Final Four and West Regional Most Outstanding Player, and was named MVP of the SEC tournament.
On the road to their National Championship win, Clayton Jr. recorded 34 points in the final four game against Auburn after recording 30 points in the Gators’ win against Texas Tech.
He also ranks 24th in Florida history with a total 1,346 points as a Gator, along with holding the two highest scoring seasons: 2024-25 (713 points) and 2023-24 when he recorded 633 points.
Over the course of his career, Clayton Jr. scored 210 3-point field goals, which was the 10th-highest career total in Florida history, and his 117 in 2024-25 was the second most by a Gator in a single season.
In 2024-25, Clayton Jr. was named the NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player, was named to the NCAA Final Four All-Tournament Team, All-SEC Tournament Team, earned the 2025 Wooden Award Top five, 2025 Wooden All-American, was a 2025 Naismith Player of the Year Semifinalist, 2025 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Finalist, among other honors as well.
With being named the 2025 SEC Man of the Year, Clayton Jr. becomes UF’s 14th all-time Kramer Athlete of the Year honoree (17 total honors) and is the first for men’s basketball.
He is UF’s sixth male athlete to earn the distinction of SEC Man of the Year, joining an elite group in Danny Wuerffel (1995, 1996), Ryan Lochte (2005), Tim Tebow (2007, 2008), Caeleb Dressel (2018), and Gran Holloway (2019).
This is also the third straight season that the Gators have had a finalist for the award. Parker Valby was a finalist in 2024, and Trinity Thomas in 2023 took home Female Athlete of the Year. Florida now has the most honorees in SEC history, with eight males and nine females being honored.
Clayton Jr. graduated from the University of Florida in spring 2025, concluding his time as a Gator.
The guard from Lake Wales was then drafted in the first round of the 2025 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz where he will take the next step in his basketball career.