Memphis East’s Alex Lomax is going to need a larger trophy case. February 13th at the SCIAA Basketball Championship he was awarded the Dr. JL Perry Award of Excellence . This award recognizes a student-athlete in the sport of basketball for academic success, basketball performance, model character and behavior as well as leadership on and off the court.
Then, on March 8th, Lomax captured the AAA TSSAA Mr. Basketball honor at the Murphy Center at MTSU. His value to the Mustangs basketball team extends far beyond just stats, and the voters recognized that.
Today, March 17th, in its 31st year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with USA TODAY High School Sports, announced Alex Lomax as its’ 2015-16 Gatorade Tennessee Boys Basketball Player of the Year. The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the court, distinguishes Lomax as Tennessee’s best high school boys basketball player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year award to be announced in March, Lomax joins an elite alumni association of past state boys basketball award winners.
Lomax has maintained a 3.62 GPA in the classroom and represents one of the state’s top academic candidates in meeting the Gatorade award’s broad criteria. The winner of Shelby County’s JL Perry Leadership Award, he is a member of the Memphis East Poetry Club. He has also volunteered locally with Peer Power, an after-school tutoring program, and serves as a youth basketball coach.