St. Paul’s standout Janie Ford has been named the Gatorade Alabama Girls Track & Field Player of the Year for 2024, the fifth athlete from her school to earn the honor and the second person in her family to be selected in the 39th year of the company recognizing the nation’s most elite high school athletes.

Ford’s mother, Camille Root Ford, was Gatorade Alabama Track & Field Player of the Year in 1994-95.

The award, according to the Gatorade news release, is based on excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community.

Ford, a 5-foot-9½ junior hurdler, won four individual titles at the Class 6A state meet this season to help the Saints to a fourth-place finish and took the state heptathlon with a state record performance. She won the 300-meter hurdles, the triple jump, the 100-meter hurdles and the long jump at the AHSAA State Track & Field Meet. She had personal bests in the 100 hurdles (13.97 seconds) and the long jump (19 feet, 5.5 inches). Ford’s heptathlon finish of 5,257 points ranked 26th in U.S. high school history.

She is the editor of her high school yearbook and president of the St. Paul’s Kindness Club. Ford has donated her time as part of community service initiatives with her Ashland Place United Methodist Church youth group.

“Janie Ford demonstrated next-level durability in winning four individual events while also dominating the heptathlon,” said Rich Gonzalez, editor of PrepCalTrack.com. “She’s made a convincing case that she’s the best multi-event track and field athlete in state history.”

Ford has maintained a 3.6 weighted grade point average at St. Paul’s.

Recent Gatorade Alabama Girls Track & Field Players of the Year include Morgan Davis of Saraland in 2023, Iyana Johnson of Davidson in 2022 and Chanice Spicer of Brewbaker Tech in Montgomery in 2020 and 2021.

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and all 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. A National Player of the Year in each sport is also named by the company, administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee using experts from coaching, scouting, media and others as sources to evaluate and choose the state winners.

Winners receive a grant from Gatorade to donate to a social impact partner. So far, the program has awarded more than $4.9 million to winners across more than 1,900 organizations. To learn more about the program or to nominate student-athletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com.