If anything is certain, she has had her head in the game, and is reaping the benefits of her effort.

Senior Alexis Jennings’s number 32 jersey was retired at a ceremony on April 18, where over a hundred members of the community showed up to support the basketball player who was also honored as Gatorade’s Player of the Year.

“The TV stations and newspaper were on hand to capture the moment.  Dale Strong presented a Madison County Resolution to Alexis.  It was a fantastic event,” coach Patrick Delay said.

Jennings had found out about her win a few weeks before while on Twitter, and was shocked to find that she had won just before it was announced to the rest of the student body, though very excited to be honored on a national platform.
“I didn’t know I was in the running. I guess they take your academic perspective, all your achievements in basketball, how you lead, that type of thing. And they chose me,” Jennings said. “It’s just a great honor, I guess, to be able to represent the school, myself, my family, everything that I believe in. And I finally got to be something. It’s the hard work, it paid off.”

Alumnus Adrian Webb’s jersey retirement was also formally honored at the event, though it was retired by former coach June Seals in 2009. Webb returned to her alma mater to speak at the ceremony, which proved a poetic ending of sorts to Jennings’s own high school basketball career.

“Adrian Webb kind of paved the way for me. I remember being at camp and she was a speaker because she was on the team at the time, and I just followed her. She was a good leader, and I was like, I wanna be just like her one day. She paved the way and put all the hard work in and it paid off,” Jennings said.

Jennings has played basketball since she was around five years old, starting on a team at eight and practicing as much as possible since then. Throughout that time, she built herself up as a player, with her team making major achievements both locally and nationally.

“Our senior class won 117 games in their four years which is the most for any senior class.  Alexis scored 2596 points which is the most all time in SHS history.  She was a four time all state player, Class 6A Player of the Year, Northwest Regional MVP, and named to the WBCA All American team,” Delay said. “I’m extremely proud of Alexis and Adrienne.  They are great ambassadors for Sparkman High School and our program.  I’m just glad that I had the opportunity to be around these kids for 4 years.”

Jennings has signed to play basketball at the University of Kentucky in the fall, and is proud of how far she has come and how much she has grown since she began playing so many years ago.

“It [feels] good because I set out on my dream as a young kid and I accomplished everything that I felt I should have accomplished over my high school career,” Jennings said.