PRESS RELEASE | In its 34th year of honoring the nation's best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company today announced Anna Hall of Valor Christian High School as its 2018-19 Gatorade Colorado Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year. Hall is the first Gatorade Colorado Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from Valor Christian 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 track, distinguishes Hall as Colorado'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, Hall joins an elite alumni association of state track & field award-winners, 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-11 senior won two individual events and anchored two first-place relays at the state championships this past season, leading the Eagles to the Class 5A state championship as a team. The state's returning Gatorade Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year and the national record-holder in both the heptathlon and the indoor pentathlon, Hall broke the tape in the 100-meter high hurdles at the state meet with a time of 14.18 seconds and the 300-meter intermediate hurdles with a time of 41.70 seconds. She also led the winning 4x200 and 4x400 relays.
A National Honor Society member, Hall has volunteered locally on behalf youth track programs, K-Life Ministries and Brent's Place, a long-term home for families and children with life-threatening illnesses. "Anna had to overcome a serious injury that threatened her senior season and she did it with ultimate focus and diligence," said Valor Christian coach Brian Kula. "She spent about three hours a day rehabbing for five weeks to get back on the track-it just shows her commitment and dedication to being the best."
Hall has maintained a weighted 4.16 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to compete in track and field on scholarship at the University of Georgia beginning 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. From the 12 national winners, one male and one female athlete are each named Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year. In all, 607 athletes are honored each year.
Two-time winner Hall joins Gatorade Colorado Girls Track & Field Athletes of the Year Arria Minor (2016-17, Denver East High School), Katie Rainsberger (2015-16, Air Academy High School), Jordyn Colter (2014-15, Cherry Creek High School) and Dior Hall (2013-14, George Washington High School) among the state's list of former award winners.
As a part of Gatorade's cause marketing platform "Play it Forward," Hall also has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national youth sports organization of her choosing. She is also eligible to submit an essay to win one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants for the organization of choice, which will be announced throughout the year.
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.
