In its 25th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPN RISE, today announced Carmen Carlos of McGill-Toolen Catholic High School as its 2009-10 Gatorade Alabama Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year. Carlos is the first Gatorade Alabama Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year to be chosen from McGill-Toolen Catholic 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 racecourse, distinguishes Carlos as Alabama’s best high school girls cross country runner. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year award to be announced in January, Carlos joins an elite alumni association of past state award-winners in 12 sports, including Derek Jeter (1991-92, Kalamazoo HS, MI), Candace Parker (2001-02, Naperville Central HS, IL), Kevin Garnett (1992-93, Maudlin HS, SC), Abby Wambach (1997-98, Our Lady of Mercy, NY) and Mark Sanchez (2004-05, Mission Viejo HS, Calif.).
The 5-foot-6 freshman distance runner won the Class 6A state meet with a time of 17:43.57 this past season, leading the Yellowjackets to fourth place as a team. A 2009-10 ESPN RISE Southeast Regional Athlete of the Week, Carlos placed 16th at the Foot Locker South Regional championships in 17:49. Also the Runner of the Year as named by The Press-Register, she captured first place at the Jesse Owens Classic and the Southeast Cross Country Showdown, in addition to placing third at the Mobile Cross Country Challenge of Champions this past fall. Carlos finished eighth at the 2008 Class 6A state meet as an eighth-grader.
Also a basketball standout, Carlos has maintained a 4.18 weighted GPA in the classroom. She has volunteered on behalf of her school’s Servants of the Poor and Pro-Life clubs in addition to donating her time at a local nursing home.
“Her ability to run fast early in a race distinguished her from the competition,” said McGill-Toolen Catholic Head Coach Drew Bentley. “As a freshman, it would be easy to just follow the leaders. Instead, she learned this year to be the leader and make everyone try to run her race.”
Carlos will begin her sophomore 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 ESPN RISE and the Gatorade high school sports leadership team, 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.
Carlos joins Gatorade Alabama Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year Madeline Morgan (2008-09 & 2007-08, Mountain Brook) as athletes who have won the cross country award since its inception in 2007.
