Baton Rouge Magnet’s Logan Lewis named Gatorade’s Louisiana Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year

CHICAGO – In its 34th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company today announced Logan Lewis of Baton Rouge Magnet High School as its 2018-19 Gatorade Louisiana Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year. Lewis is the second Gatorade Louisiana Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from Baton Rouge Magnet 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 Lewis as Louisiana’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, Lewis 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-5 senior swept the discus and shot put events at the 5A state meet, helping the Bulldogs to a seventh-place finish as a team. It marked the third straight state title in the discus for Lewis. An Advocate Star of Stars award-winner and the 5A state record-holder in the discus, her season- and personal-best throw of 45 feet, 6.5 inches in the shot ranked No. 43 nationally among prep competitors in the event in 2019 at the time of her selection. Lewis’ season-best and PR in the discus (146-0) ranked No. 67. She graduates as a six-time state meet medalist in outdoor track.

The 2018-19 Vice President of the Mu Sigma Rhoer Club, an affiliate of a national youth leadership and empowerment NGO, Lewis is a member of her school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter and the African American Heritage Club. She has volunteered locally with the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, the March of Dimes, the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Swim 1922, a national initiative to increase swim participation and decrease drowning rates in the African American community. She has also donated her time by visiting nursing homes and collecting useful items for families in need. Her other charitable endeavors having involved the Hattie McDaniel Cancer Awareness Balloon Release, the Jags Run for the Cure, Catholic Charities Adopt-A-Family, Woman’s Hospital adopt-a-newborn, the Sickle Cell Walk and the Walls Project. “Logan is one of the fiercest competitors that we’ve faced during the past four years,” said Zachary High head coach Chris Carrier. “Her senior year may have been her best, winning indoor and outdoor state championships in the shot put and the outdoor state title in the discus.”

Lewis has maintained a weighted 3.86 GPA in the classroom and represents one of the state’s top academic candidates in meeting the Gatorade award’s broad criteria. She has signed a national letter of intent to compete on an athletic scholarship at the University of Southern Mississippi 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.

Lewis joins recent Gatorade Louisiana Girls Track & Field Athletes of the Year Leah Scott (2017-18, Dutchtown High School), Kyah Loyd (2016-17, C.E. Byrd High School), Janie O’Connor (2015-16, Zachary High School), Hannah Jackson (2014-15, Sulphur High School) and Mikiah Brisco (2013-14, Baton Rouge Magnet High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.

As a part of Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” Lewis 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.

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.