Alex Leath of Vestavia Hills High School has been named the 2022-23 Gatorade Alabama Boys Track & Field Player of the Year.

The senior runner is the second Gatorade honoree from Vestavia Hills in the past three seasons, following Ethan Strand’s award in 2020-21.

The award, in its 38th year, recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field. He is a finalist for the Gatorade National Boys Track & Field Player of the Year award to be announced in July.

The 6-foot-1, 160-pound Leath won the 800- and 1600-meter events at the Alabama High School Athletic Association Class 7A state meet this past season, leading the Rebels to a second-place finish as a team. Leath’s winning time in the 1600 of 4:07.33 ranked No. 19 nationally among prep competitors in 2023. He took seventh in the 800 at the Brooks PR Invitational in a state-record 1:49.84, which ranked No. 15 nationally. He also earned dual All-American honors at Nike Outdoor Nationals with a sixth-place finish in the 800 followed by his anchor leg for a 4×800 relay quartet that took second in a state-record time of 7:30.68.

Leath has maintained a weighted 4.11 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a National Letter of Intent to compete on scholarship at the University of Virginia this fall.

Leath has volunteered as part of multiple fundraising campaigns to benefit cancer research in association with Vestavia Rise, a school initiative.

“Alex Leath established himself as one of the top middle-distance talents in the nation this spring, breaking two state records to rank among Alabama’s all-time track greats,” said Rich Gonzalez, editor of PrepCalTrack.com. “He smashed a 16-year-old state record in the 800 before capping his senior season by anchoring the Rebels’ 4×800 quartet to the third-fastest performance in national prep history at Nike Outdoor Nationals.”

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.

Leath joins recent Gatorade Alabama Boys Track & Field Players of the Year Maddox Hamm (2021-22, Scottsboro), Strand (2020-21, Vestavia Hills), Josiah Harry (2019-20, Mobile Christian) and Charles Lewis (2018-19, Sparkman), among the state’s list of former award winners.

Being a Gatorade Player of the Year means paying it forward for the next generation. Through Gatorade’s Play it Forward initiative, every Player of the Year receives a grant to give to one of Gatorade’s social impact partners, supporting Gatorade’s ambition to fuel the future of sport. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.

To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate student-athletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.