CHICAGO (June 25, 2020) — In its 35th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company today announced Jadyn Mays of North Canyon High School as its 2019-20 Gatorade Arizona Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year. Mays is the second Gatorade Arizona Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from North Canyon 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 Mays as Arizona’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, Mays 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-2 senior was undefeated throughout the 2020 indoor and abbreviated outdoor season. The winner of the 60- meter and 200-meter dash at the Great Southwest Indoor Championships, she ranked in the top 30 nationally in both events during the indoor season. Her personal-best time of 55.26 seconds in the outdoor 400-meter dash this past season ranked as the nation’s No. 10 time among prep competitors. An 11-time state champion in the sprints and long jump, she concluded her prep track career with three all-time Top 10 marks in Arizona.

Mays has volunteered locally as a peer Spanish tutor and as a youth track coach. “Jadyn Mays is a phenomenal athlete,” said Brandon Payne, head coach of Horizon High. “On the track she is always focused and wanting to dominate her opponents and the record books.”

Mays has maintained a weighted 3.88 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a national letter of intent to compete on an athletic scholarship at the University of Oregon.

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. Mays joins recent Gatorade Arizona Girls Track & Field Athletes of the Year Dominique Mustin (2018-19, North Canyon High School), Jai Gruenwald (2017-18, Chandler High School), Allie Schadler (2016-17 & 2015-16, Rio Rico High School), Dani Jones (2014-15, Desert Vista High School), and Ky Westbrook (2013-14, Chandler 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.