University of Alabama football and track and field signee Grant Hill of Huntsville High School has been named the 2012-13 Gatorade Alabama Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year. The award is administered by Gatorade in collaboration with USA Today High School Sports.

Hill is the first Gatorade Alabama Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from Huntsville 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 Hill as Alabama’s best high school boy’s track and field athlete.

Hill is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year award, which will be announced in June.

Hill won the discus with a throw of 176 feet, 1 inch and the shot put with a mark of 54-3.75 at the Class 6A state championship meet this spring, leading the Panthers to a fifth-place finish as a team. Hill’s season-best discus throw of 203-7 ranked as the nation’s No. 2 performance among prep competitors in 2013 at the time of his selection.

A football standout, Hill maintained a 3.23 GPA in the classroom and volunteers locally on behalf of a soup kitchen and youth sports programs.

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 and field. It awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.

The selection process is administered by the Gatorade high school sports leadership team in partnership with USA Today High School Sports, which works with top sport- specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.