(CEDAR HILL, TEXAS) For most high school Track & Field athletes in Texas, the UIL Championships are the pinnacle and the final time that senior teammates will have a chance to compete alongside each other.
For five members of the Cedar Hill High School Boys Track & Field Team, they will have one more opportunity before they go their separate ways to different universities.
“This is the final stage after the final stage,” Cedar Hill senior DaCorey Ware said.
On Thursday afternoon, Pastor Chris Wesley of the Antioch Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church presented $7,500 so that Ware, seniors Diallo Good, Kaleb Green and Brian Rainey and junior Robert Richardson and their coaches could travel to compete in the National High School Track & Field Championships on July 1-2 in Eugene, Oregon.
“It’s just a blessing,” Cedar Hill head boys track & field coach Kevin Benjamin said. “This helps the kids and parents an enormous amount.”
The Cedar Hill Boys 4×100 and 4×200 Relay Teams each won the gold medal last month at the UIL Class 6A Championships in Austin, leading the Longhorns to a second place finish at State – their best finish in 14 years.
Their performance led to an invitation to the National Championships in July, but since it’s not a school-sponsored event, the scholar athletes would have to pay their own way to Oregon.
Competing at Collegiate Level
Adding to Thursday’s festivities, three of the five scholar-athletes signed with their respective universities – Ware (Illinois), Good (North Carolina A&T) and Green (Texas State).
“These are well deserving young men,” Benjamin said. “Their universities are blessed to have them. They will represent Cedar Hill and the community really well. We are here to support them in any way we can.”
Rainey, the 2020-2021 Cedar Hill Boys Scholar Athlete of the Year, had previously signed to play football at Trinity University in San Antonio. He has since announced that he will also run track there.
Richardson will begin his senior year in August, competing in football and track & field for Cedar Hill.
After they signed with their universities, the scholar athletes and coaches were presented with a brick – with their name on it – to symbolize their legacy as a Longhorn who won a state championship.
