CHICAGO — In its 35th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company has selected Jasmine Jones of Greater Atlanta Christian School as its 2019-20 Gatorade Georgia Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year. Jones is the first Gatorade Georgia Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from Greater Atlanta Christian 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 Jones as Georgia’s best high school girls track & field athlete. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year award to be announced in June, Jones 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 state’s returning Athlete of the Year, the 5-foot-10 senior broke the tape in the 60-meter hurdles at the South Carolina Invitational with a time of 8.12 seconds, which ranked as the nation’s No. 1 among prep indoors competitors in 2020. She outraced 33 collegians in the process, and the clocking ranks No. 7 in U.S. prep history in the event. Jones also ranked No. 33 in the long jump and No. 58 in the 60-meter dash this past indoor season. She capped her 2019 outdoor campaign by winning the 100-meter hurdles at the USATF U20 Championships in a personal-best 13.19, which ranked as the nation’s No. 1 time among prep competitors in 2019 as well as No. 29 in high school history. Jones followed that up by winning the event at the Pan-American Championships in Costa Rica. At the 2019 GHSA 3A State Championships, she swept the 200-meter dash, the 100 hurdles and the long jump—the latter the nation’s No. 7 leap among prep competitors in 2019—leading the Spartans to the team title. An 11-time state champion and the No. 5 recruit in the Class of 2020 as rated by MileSplit, she also ran the lead leg for last year’s winning 4x400-meter relay quartet and the third leg for a 4x100 foursome that broke the tape as well.
A gifted dancer who has performed at the highest levels of competitive dance on private and school teams, Jones also participates in musical theater, having played primary roles in My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. She has participated in a service-mission trip to Nicaragua and also donates her time as a tutor for lower-school students in addition to teaching dance and theater to young students. “Without reservation, I believe Jasmine should be the winner,” said Isiah Hill, the sprint and jumps coach at Wesleyan School. “I’ve coached athletes across different sports over the years and she is, hands down, not only the best athlete I’ve been associated with, but one of the best human beings I’ve ever met.”
Jones has maintained a weighted 4.4 weighted GPA in the classroom. She has signed a national letter of intent to compete in track and field at the University of Southern California.
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 work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
Two-time winner Jones joins recent Gatorade Georgia Girls Track & Field Athletes of the Year Kennedy Simon (2017-18, 2016-2017, Westlake High School), Cassondra Hall (2015-16, Warner Robins High School) and Candace Hill (2014-15, 2013-2014, Rockdale County High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.
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 www.Gatorade.com/POY, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GatoradePOY or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Gatorade.
