Brewbaker Tech’s Spicer talks Gatorade Alabama T&F Athlete of the Year Award
CHICAGO (June 25, 2020) — In its 35th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company today announced Chanice Spicer of Brewbaker Tech as its 2019-20 Gatorade Alabama Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year. Spicer is the first Gatorade Alabama Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from Brewbaker Tech.
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 Spicer as Alabama’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, Spicer 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-3 junior won the 60-meter dash and the 400-meter run at the 2020 Indoor AHSAA State Indoor 1A-7A Championship. In her lone outdoor meet of the abbreviated 2020 season, she swept the 200, 400 and 800 at the Auburn Early Bird. In 2019, Spicer broke the tape in the 100, 200 and 400 at the State Outdoor 4A-7A Championship. She owns the state record in the 100 and 200. A nine-time state champion indoors and outdoors, her personal-best 200 clocking of 24.24 seconds ranked No. 104 nationally among prep competitors in the event in 2019. Her indoor PR in the 400 (55.61) ranked No. 24 in 2020.
An Alpha Kappa Alpha ASCEND Scholar, Spicer has volunteered as a mentor with Save Kids of Incarcerated Parents (SKIP) and on behalf of a food drive in association with the True Divine Baptist Church Backpack Ministry. She has also donated her time to the Samaritan’s Purse Project as well as tutoring peers in math during the pandemic shelter-in-place. A RAM Ambassador, a member of the Key Club and HOSA Future Health Professional, she ushers at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham. “Chanice Spicer is essentially a Top-100 performer in three events, indoors and outdoors over the past year, capped off by her U.S. No. 24 in the outdoor 200 in 2019,” said Erik Boal, a DyeStat editor. “In two seasons of high school track, she’s earned nine state titles, set six school records and medaled four times at the AAU National Club Championship.”
Spicer has maintained a GPA of 4.21 in the classroom. She will begin her senior year of high school 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 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.
Spicer joins recent Gatorade Alabama Girls Track & Field Athletes of the Year Nicole Payne (2018-19, Oak Mountain High School), Alonie Sutton (2017-18, Smiths Station High School), Caitlyn Little (2016-17, Hoover High School), Brittley Humphrey (2015-16, Hoover High School), Kiara Williams (2014-15, Homewood High School), and Jayla Kirkland (2013-14, Woodlawn 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.
