CHICAGO (June 30, 2022) — In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Joy Moorer of North Canyon High School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Arizona Girls Track & Field Player of the Year. Moorer is the third Gatorade Arizona Girls Track & Field Player 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 Moorer as Arizona’s best high school girls track & field athlete. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Player of the Year award to be announced in July, Moorer 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 (2014- 15 & 2013-14, Grand Blanc High School, Mich.) and Candace Hill (2014-15, Rockdale County High School, Ga.).

The 5-foot-5 senior won the 300-meter hurdles and the long jump at the Division 2 state meet this past season for a second straight year, leading the Rattlers to the state team title. Moorer’s winning 300 hurdles time of 41.47 seconds at the state meet ranked No. 5 nationally among prep competitors in 2022 at the time of her selection, while her leap of 18 feet, 11 inches in the long jump ranked No. 63. The Arizona Republic’s 2022 Athlete of the Year, she also earned a pair of second-place finishes at the state meet in the 200-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles.

Moorer has volunteered locally at Phoenix Children’s Hospital with the Celebrating Serenity Foundation, which was founded by her family. She has also donated her time as a student aide and tutor for special-needs students. “Those young ladies at North Canyon set the standard for Arizona high school track and field, and Joy Moorer is no exception,” said Brandon Payne, head coach of Horizon High. “She is a fierce competitor, an elite sprinter and has been a joy to watch compete.”

Moorer has maintained a weighted 3.84 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to compete on an athletic scholarship at Texas A&M University 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 leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport. Moorer joins recent Gatorade Arizona Girls Track & Field Players of the Year Makayla Long (2020-21, Perry High School), Jadyn Mays (2019-20, North Canyon High School), Dominique Mustin (2018-19, North Canyon High School), and Jai Gruenwald (2017-18, Chandler High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.

Gatorade has a long-standing history of serving athlete communities and understands how sports instill valuable lifelong skills on and off the field. Through Gatorade’s “Play it Forward” platform, Middleton has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization of their choosing that helps young athletes realize the benefits of playing sports. Middleton is also eligible to submit a short video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.

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 studentathletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.