The 16-year-old was selected from a pool of more than 5,000 eligible players across the United States and Canada

Applewhite has appeared in eight matches this season for Nashville SC’s MLS NEXT Pro affiliate Huntsville City Football Club

Nashville Soccer Club and MLS NEXT announced today that U’17 Academy defender Chris Applewhite has been named a 2024 MLS NEXT All Star. The 2024 MLS NEXT All-Star Game presented by Allstate will stream live on MLSSoccer.com July 23 at 10:30 a.m. CT from Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio as part of 2024 MLS All Star Week, with each member of the team playing 45 minutes.

Applewhite, who is one of just 44 All Stars chosen from a pool of more than 5,000 eligible players born between 2007 and 2009, first joined the Nashville SC Academy in 2022 as a member of the U’17 Team. In addition to representing the U’17 team for The Gold Mine during the 2023-24 season, the defender has appeared eight times for Nashville SC’s MLS NEXT Pro affiliate Huntsville City Football Club in 2024, starting seven matches and logging 544 minutes.

MLS NEXT is a youth development league comprised of 29 MLS academies, including Nashville SC’s The Gold Mine, 114 Elite Academies (143 total clubs), 677 teams, and over 15,000 players across the U.S. and Canada. To qualify for the All-Star game, players must have competed in the MLS NEXT regular season and played in at least one of the MLS NEXT premier events this season – MLS NEXT Fest, MLS NEXT Flex, Generation adidas Cup, or the MLS NEXT Cup Playoffs and Showcase. MLS All Star Week takes place from July 20 to 24 and features the MLS All-Star Concert, MLS NEXT All-Star Game, MLS All-Star Skills Challenge, and MLS All-Star Game.

Nashville SC joined Major League Soccer on Feb. 29, 2020 in front of the largest attendance ever recorded for a soccer match in the State of Tennessee. In its inaugural MLS season, Nashville SC defied expectations by becoming the second MLS expansion side to win and advance to the Conference Semifinals in the 2020 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs. Nashville SC returned to the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs in its sophomore season after becoming just the seventh team in MLS history to go unbeaten at home in a season. The Boys in Gold again qualified for the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs in both 2022 and 2023, becoming just the third team in league history to reach the postseason during the team’s first four years in existence. Nashville SC inaugurated GEODIS Park, the largest soccer-specific stadium in the United States and Canada, in front of a sellout crowd of 30,109 on May 1, 2022. For more information, visit NashvilleSC.com and follow the club at @NashvilleSC on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Spotify.