USA TODAY High School Sports is launching a series called “60 for ’16” to highlight 60 members of the Class of 2016 who we will be watching in the coming 12 months. The athletes were selected by the USA TODAY HSS staff.
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Name: Gabrielle Jennings
School: First Baptist Christian (Slidell, La.)
Sport: Girls track and cross country
Events: 800, 1,600, 3,200, 4×400 meters
What we’ve seen: Jennings is one of the most prolific distance champions in American running history, and she isn’t even done yet. The rising First Baptist senior already owns an astounding 37 career state titles after sweeping the 800, 1,600, 3,200 and 4×400 titles at the 2015 LHSAA Outdoor Track and Field State Championship. There’s little risk of Jennings slowing down bar an unforeseen injury, either.
“It’s amazing. I just can’t even put it into words,” Jennings told the Times-Picayune of her success on the track. “I know people have asked me that question a lot of times before, and I’ve kind of answered the same way. You can’t really explain it, but when I was in fourth grade, and I was getting picked on by all these other kids, and I didn’t fit in, I was too skinny, I didn’t belong anywhere, running was my little thing to call my own, and looking back, I would’ve never thought that I would be where I am today when I was in fourth grade.”
Jennings was named the 2015 Louisiana Girls Runner of the Year for the cross country season after winning her seventh consecutive Class C individual state championship with a time of 19:14.9.
Oh, and she’s not too shabby in the classroom, either, sporting a GPA of 3.93.
Why we’re watching: Can Jennings take the next step toward universal acclaim and greatness? No one can possibly doubt her remarkable dominance at the state level, but Jennings has yet to truly take a national event by storm.
She has three more seasons — cross country, indoor track and outdoor track — to make that mark, though such a run (pardon the pun) may not be in Jennings’ genes; she’s a team player at heart.
“I’m beyond proud of all my girls today,” Jennings told the Times-Picayune after her most recent quadruple title run. “They did great. It’s so hard, especially in cross country where it’s just me and my sister as a team, but to come out in track season and have an actual team environment — and we’re a lot closer than a lot of the bigger schools’ teams I know because we’re just so small and we really are family — so everybody today did outstanding, and I could not be a more proud sister and to all of the girls’ team, and we had a couple guys out today, so we did great.”
