CHICAGO (July 2, 2021) — In its 36th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Janae Profit of Dunwoody High School as its 2020-21 Gatorade Georgia Girls Track & Field Player of the Year. Profit is the first Gatorade Georgia Girls Track & Field Player of the Year to be chosen from Dunwoody High School.
The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Profit as Georgia’s best high school girls track & field athlete. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Player of the Year award to be announced in July, Profit joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Lolo Jones (1997-98, Roosevelt High School, Iowa), Allyson Felix (2002-03, Los Angeles Baptist High School, Calif.), Robert Griffin III (2006-07, Copperas Cove High School, Texas), Grant Fisher (2013-14 & 2014-15, Grand Blanc High School, Mich.) and Candace Hill (2014-15, Rockdale County High School, Ga.).
The 5-foot-7 senior swept the discus and shot put at the Class 7A state meet this past season. At the time of her selection, Profit’s season-best throw of 47-feet, 11 inches in the shot put ranked No. 19 nationally among 2021 prep competitors and her personal-best discus performance of 159-8 ranked No. 20. The 2021 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Female Track and Field Athlete of the Year, she won the shot put at the Georgia High School Champions Challenge in the fall of 2020 and also won the Turkey Toss with a personal-best throw of 48-1.75. Her best prep throws in the discus and shot rank No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, in state history, according to MileSplit.com. Also the shot put and discus champion at June’s USATF National Youth Outdoor Championships, she concluded her prep track career with seven individual state titles in indoor and outdoor track.
Having served as a pre-school assistant and vacation bible school counselor with the Chamblee First United Methodist Church every summer from 2015-19, Profit has also donated her time on behalf of area voter registration efforts throughout most of 2020. In addition, she has promoted, prepared and scripted various news, sports and events broadcasts in association with her school’s Mass Communications Department and she has volunteered locally by preparing throwing technique videos for the Rockslingers Athletic Track Club. “Janae is an intelligent, capable and personable young woman,” said Angus Fisher, a former assistant coach for the Throw1Deep Track Club. “She is capable of handling any situation with thoughtfulness and maturity. I have watched her grow into an absolute force of being coachable, an elite competitor and a leader on her team. She’s committed to her training, she’s passionate about achieving her goals, she’s a supportive teammate and a brilliant leader. Janae is the paradigm for a student-athlete and outstanding member of the community.”
Profit has maintained a 3.45 weighted GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to compete on an athletic scholarship at the University of Virginia this fall.
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 works with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
Profit joins recent Gatorade Georgia Girls Track & Field Players of the Year Jasmine Jones (2019-20 & 2018-19, Greater Atlanta Christian School), and Kennedy Simon (2017-18 & 2016-17, Westlake High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
Through Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” Profit has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national youth sports organization of their choosing. Profit is also eligible to submit a 30-second video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $2.7 million across 1,117 organizations.
Since the program’s inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.
To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate student-athletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.
