The list of high school accomplishments is long for St. Paul’s track star Janie Ford.

Twenty individual state titles.

Three heptathlon crowns.

Back-to-back Mobile Challenge of Champions Outstanding Performer awards.

A Gatorade Female Track and Field Athlete of the Year trophy.

Now, Ford can also claim consecutive AL.com Coastal Female Athlete of the Year awards.

The Vanderbilt signee ended her career with four individual wins at the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Class 7A outdoor state championships, earning state records in the long jump (20 feet, 4 ½ inches), 300-meter hurdles (41.43 seconds), and the 200 (23.34). She also won the 100-meter hurdles in 14.13.

Eleven days later, Ford broke her own heptathlon record by scoring 5,311 points, made possible by a 2:10.54 in the 800.

“In the heptathlon, every year it’s almost like a fever dream because it’s after state, and for most people there, it’s their first time doing half of the events,” Ford said. “So, it’s a little bit loosey-goosey for everyone else going in.

“I didn’t put too much expectation on myself going in or anything to prove. I felt that I had such a good state meet that I was almost checked out a little bit afterwards. But I wound up having to say prayers and to work myself up in the 800 (in order) to break my record. I honestly thought I wanted to do better in the javelin, but I wound up working my way back, thankfully.”

Ford finished only 14th in the javelin with a throw of only 82-1. Knowing she needed to have a strong race in the 800, Ford did just that, running the race of her life and coming away with the title and another record. In fact, her heptathlon 800 time would have won every classification in Class 1A to 7A in the open 800 and would have broken the state record in each classification except Class 7A.

Family Affair

What else can you expect from someone who knows when to crank things up a notch when the pressure is on? After all, she is the daughter of another St. Paul’s legend.

Camille Root Ford, Janie’s mother, is also the St. Paul’s head track and field coach and was an outstanding athlete for the Saints under coaching great Jim Tate. She won nearly 40 individual indoor and outdoor titles and won state heptathlon titles in 1993 and 1996 before going on to compete at the University of Virginia.

Ford has certainly followed in her mom’s footsteps.

“My mom was coaching the Speedy Saints (an elementary running league sponsored by St. Paul’s), and I got involved and I stuck with it ever since,” Janie said. “Honestly, I think I tried something new every meet, just bouncing around.”

“They didn’t have hurdles,” said Root Ford. “But she did cross country in the fall, and she did long jump and anything from the 100 to the 400. She started doing that in the fourth grade.”

Root Ford admitted that, as Janie’s coach, she worried a little about putting pressure on her daughter.

“As a parent-coach, at least for me, there’s always that worry about if am I the one making her do those events, but I think after the season, it made me feel really good,” she said. “I felt that she was the one who really wanted it and was taking ownership of it. This is her deal, not my deal, and it was really great to see.”

Senior success

There were many things that made Ford’s senior season great.

One was this year’s Mobile Challenge of Champions, where Ford, along with Leah Tillman, Grayson Akridge and Emily Lockhart, ran in the 4X100-meter relay and won in a school-record 47.68.

“This year was when we really discovered how fast Janie was,” Root Ford said. “That all started during the indoor season at the state meet because it lasted only one day. It was really pretty demanding on her to do that many events in one day without hurting another event (400). If she was going to do the 400, which is truly a great event for her, she would’ve had to triple jump immediately afterward, and that’s just hard. I just decided on a whim that she would run the 60 instead.”

Ford finished a surprising second in 7.56, just behind James Clemens’ Erihana Johnson (7.45). After foregoing the 400 to compete in the triple jump, Ford went 40-11 ¾ to handily win that event, setting a state indoor meet record.

“None of us had true expectations for her (in the 60),” Root Ford said. “I remember looking at coach (Aaron) Moore, he jumps coach, and we both just did a jaw-drop.”

Once outdoor season rolled around, Ford tried another event — the 100-meter dash at the Fast Times at UMS meet. She won it in 12.22.

“It was the first time she ever ran the 100, and she showed what she could do,” Root Ford said.

Ford ran the 100 at two other meets, winning them both in impressive fashion. At the Angelo Harris meet, she defeated Baker and Ole Miss signee Myla Reed 11.80 to 11.96. She defeated Reed again in the Mobile Challenge of Champions Invitational 100, running 11.68.

Ford was originally scheduled to run the 300-meter hurdles at the Mobile Challenge of Champions meet but decided to switch to the 100 because she couldn’t resist the challenge of a competitive field.

“I couldn’t pass up the chance to do the 100 because of the meet and the competition,” she said. “Going into the meet, I wasn’t expecting to win, but I was excited to have somebody next to me who would push me.”

“The 11.68 was a little wind-aided, but it was fun,” Root Ford said. “She enjoyed that, and she loved being on that 4 X 100. That’s the neat thing about being a multi (event athlete); she was in different events, and she enjoyed that for sure.”

Which sport, Janie?

Ford didn’t originally plan to be one of the top female track and field athletes in Alabama history.

“Her first love was gymnastics,” Root Ford said. “She was so good in that, and she was in the sport until the sixth grade. I think it was great because she got under coach Tate her seventh-grade year.”

“He (Tate) was such a close figure with all the girls, and I was closer to him because of my mom,” Janie said. “I’m very thankful that he did a great job. While he was coaching me, I ran in a lot of relays, and I only had one outdoor meet because of COVID. Honestly, I still felt like a kid back then. I didn’t think about, ‘Oh no, my track season has come to an end.’”

After the COVID shortened 2020 season, Ford got back into the competitive groove and began exploring other events, such as the hurdles. In fact, she occasionally competed in the pole vault as an eighth grader.

“It was just a learning experience,” Ford said. “It wasn’t a matter of knowing what I was doing. It was more like muscle memory. But I got into a lot of disciplines; I practiced a lot and did it a bunch of times. A lot of the girls on our team pole vaulted. It was interesting because it was a throwback to gymnastics.”

As a freshman, Ford began hurdling, long jumping and even triple jumping on a regular basis. She also did the heptathlon and finished second with 4,797 points. As her performances improved, Ford found herself under even more pressure her sophomore year.

“My sophomore year, my anxiety level really spiked because of what other people thought of me and my expectation to be a good athlete,” she said. “I actually put pressure on myself to do as well as I could and basically get a personal record every single meet. If I didn’t, I thought I would never progress again.

“I think that was a lot more challenging for me than my junior and senior year, because then I became a little more confident in myself and my abilities and realizing it is a process. I can’t be my very best every single practice and every single meet, and you have to take it one day at a time.”

Legendary rivalry

Ford had one of the most exciting rivalries in Southwest Alabama track and field history as a sophomore, going against Saraland’s Morgan Davis, who is now starring for the University of Kentucky. Root Ford said the rivalry against Davis was a thrilling experience.

“It was really exciting for Janie to have that competition,” she said. “It was a true blessing for sure, because let’s be honest, if it wasn’t for Morgan, Janie would’ve won everything from her sophomore year on. We were grateful for Morgan’s friendship and competition for sure.”

“Morgan was such a sweet girl, and it didn’t feel like too much competition when we got on the line,” Janie said. “I was happy to have a little of the spotlight taken off me. She was such a good athlete. She pushed me and elevated track in Alabama and in Mobile so much. I’m thankful to have such a good community of people to make Alabama track as good.”

One memorable meet during the 2023 season was at the Saraland Invitational, where Ford and Davis went head-to-head in the 200 meters. Janie won that race in 25.14, narrowly beating Davis (25.25). However, it was Davis who dominated the rest of the season, finishing with a classic performance in the state championships in Gulf Shores. Davis won four events, including the record 6-0 in the high jump and record 20-8 ¼ in the long jump.

Meanwhile, Ford tackled the heptathlon again. Coming in as one of the favorites, another barrier loomed — the state record of 5,000 points, set by another St. Paul’s athlete, Shelly Spires in 2014. Ford did just that, scoring 5,118 points, winning by a whopping 749 points over Scottsboro’s Caroline Sanders.

“We knew what the record was, and it was her goal to break that,” Root Ford said. “She just always amazingly moves on to the next event and just gets on that line and gives it her all. Breaking that record was her goal, and she didn’t let anything stop her from doing that. She’s kind of amazing in that regard.”

Finishing strong

People began talking more about Ford in her junior year, especially after she improved her times in the hurdles and an event she rarely ran — the 400.

 “It was at that point things started falling into place,” Root Ford said. “In her junior year she had big performances in the 300-meter hurdles and her 400-meter time was improving with her running sub-55s.”

Ford went on to break her own heptathlon record in her junior year, and did it in impressive fashion, scoring 5,257 points, a whopping 1,195 points more than second-place finisher Sarah Cothran of Oak Mountain.

With three record-breaking performances in the heptathlon, plus those 20 state titles, Ford is preparing to head to Nashville to do battle in SEC competition. The stakes are going to be higher, yet she’s excited about the challenge. It also means there’s also the possibility of running into her friend and high school opponent Davis.

“I’m really excited, honestly,” Ford said. “It’s hard to think about wearing a uniform with the SEC logo on it; I haven’t really processed it that much. But I’m obviously excited; the elevated competition hopefully won’t rattle me too much or make me nervous.”