DALLAS — It's a little after 11 a.m. on a Wednesday in mid-June, and the track and field at David W. Carter High School is bustling. The sky is mostly clear and bluer than a teenager's tongue after a Jolly Rancher. The Texas heat is already sweltering as the sun rises in the east and hangs out just south of Interstate 20. It's hot enough to coat your skin in sweat, dry the dandelions in the rugged prairie across the street, and make you wonder if Willis Carrier, who invented modern air conditioning in 1902, deserved a Nobel Prize.
But for 14-year-old Kennedy Jackson Miles, it's not too hot at all. She splays her fingers across the rubbery surface of the track and presses her feet against the metal blocks. She's a college-bound sprinter and phenom for the Cedar Hill Blaze Summer Track Club. It's clear when she blasts off the starting blocks, slows down about 10 meters before starting again. Her T-shirt is soaked. Her forehead is shiny. Her braces sparkle as she smiles.
“I plan to compete in the Olympics in 2028,” she said during a break after her umpteenth platform vault. “Because I'm mentally prepared for it and I see it in the future.”
Predicting an Olympic debut at 18 sounds fanciful, and you can tell by the look in her coach Marcus Stokes's eye when he tells her she'll be in Los Angeles in 2028. And she rattles off her birthday as if to brag about how recent it is. “March 4, 2010” — and then she remembers that 14-year-olds aren't born with a different build because they choose to spend summers working hours in Texas ovens. And she remembers who's been there before her on this journey.
On the same track, at the same school, in the same heat, Sha'Carey Richardson put in the same effort. She qualified in the 100 meters in Paris and will now make her Olympic debut, with a chance to secure her status as a national legend and a poster girl for U.S. track and field.
“There's no question who the greatest athlete is to have come out of Dallas,” said Robert DeHoney, a longtime coach in the area who is now the head cross country and track and field coach at Hillcrest High School in North Dallas.
“And then there's Sha'Carey Richardson. … She's been amazing from the get-go. This baby has been so fast since she came out of the womb.”
But Richardson was, and remains, the foremost face of the region and culture: a source of pride for Dallas, a force for North Texas, and an ambassador for the talented local community.
For a long time it was a clandestine affair, hidden in the shadows of Texas football horror, but then Oak Cliff native Michael Johnson thrust the athletics culture into the spotlight with his heroics in 1996. There were people all over North Texas who claimed to be his cousins.
“But still,” Johnson said during an interview at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., “I have cousins that I don't know.”
Sha'Carey Richardson competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials in June and will compete in her first Olympic Games later this week in the women's 100 meters. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
Johnson became a legend at the 1996 Olympics, winning gold medals in the 200 and 400 meters, the greatest athlete of all time, but locals say he wasn't a prodigy at Skyline High School. He was a late bloomer at Baylor University, where he won five NCAA championships and helped establish the Bears' reputation as the “Quarter Mile College.”
But Johnson's heroics shone a light on a cultural gem. Though nothing tops Friday Night Lights, Dallas' sprinting scene is a symbol of enthusiasm, talent and community, especially following the success of Johnson, the first athlete from the area to make it big in the sport.
“Great athletes come from all over the country,” Johnson said. “Everywhere has a special place, but Dallas is special to me. It's home.”
Twenty-eight years after Johnson put North Texas track and field on the international map, Richardson, also from Dallas' Oak Cliff neighborhood, is carrying that hometown spirit. She's taken it to new heights, especially for female sprinters.
With an epic World Championship victory already secured, she now embarks on her Olympic debut in Paris with her home and culture on her back.
Richardson has the pure talent of Roy Martin. Nicknamed “The Robot” for his mechanical running style, he is one of the best high school sprinters of all time. He graduated from Roosevelt High School. His 200 meter time of 20.13 seconds, which he ran in 1985, remains the national high school record.
The competitive spirit runs deep in Richardson with Marlon Cannon and Derrick Cunningham. A matchup between these renowned rivals in the 400 meters will get the town excited. A matchup between two local superstars, Cannon from South Oak Cliff and Cunningham from Carter High School, will fill Sprague Stadium with excitement.
Richardson has the strength of Henry Neal, a 5-foot-7, 177-pound sprinter from Greenville High School. As a senior in 1990, Neal ran the 100 meters in 10.15 seconds at the state championships, a national high school record that stood until 2019.
Richardson has the showmanship of Michael Johnson: the ability to not only seize the moment but to seize it well. He came into Atlanta as the overwhelming favorite to win, and he didn't disappoint with his gold earrings, gold Cuban-link chain and now-iconic gold Nike cleats.
Richardson is home to the state's most important event, the Texas Relays. The high school division, held at the University of Texas, is where kids dream big. They compete against the best in the state, in front of a packed stadium and cheered on by their hometown fans. And Dallas always makes an appearance.
“That's how you make your mark,” says Vance Johnson, host of the Texas Track Dads podcast and father of Indiana University-bound sprinter Aaliyah Johnson.
“I tell all the freshmen the same thing when they go to the Texas Relays: They're not going to be the same anymore. They have to qualify to go to the Texas Relays. UT announces the names of the runners who go. And when they go, they're going to see the best runners in the state. And then when they come back, they're going to really try their best, because they're going to have to get back to the Texas Relays.”
Richardson made a name for herself for herself by rising to the occasion. Before she shocked the world with the race of her life at the 2023 world championships, before she became a national star by winning the national championship in the 100 meters at Louisiana State University and winning the coveted Bowerman Trophy, she was a must-watch presence in North Texas, where summer meets are packed and high school meets take on the intensity of decades-old rivalries.

Students practice at Carter High School's John E. Kinkaid Stadium in Dallas, Texas, where Sha'Cary Richardson once played. (Aric Becker/AFP via Getty Images)
As a junior high student, she won the 200 meters by three seconds at the Dallas Independent Schools Invitational Meet. She also ran 12.00 seconds in the 100 meters as a freshman at the Leon Hayes Relays at John Kincaid Stadium in Dallas in 2015. She placed second in 12.80 seconds.
As a sophomore, she won the 4A state title in the 100 meters at Carter High School and was runner-up in the 200. She defended her 100-meter title as a junior and won the state championship in the 200 meters.
Richardson finished her high school career by competing in state championships again in both events. Her 100m time of 11.12 seconds beat the national record (11.14 seconds) set 26 years ago by Marion Jones, but Richardson's time was affected by the wind. Her 2018 200m time was second in the nation and set the Texas meet record. Fans, classmates and meet officials all asked for photos and autographs as Richardson competed.
Richardson has been in the spotlight for a long time.
“Only once,” said DeHoney, the coach who raced against Richardson all four years, “I can't remember if it was at state or a relay in Texas, but she stopped at least 10 meters from the finish line and still ran 11.4 seconds. I was amazed. She was coming from behind in the last 7-10 meters and still ran 11.4 seconds. I'd never seen that.”
Her charm didn't come from nowhere. She absorbed it. From her people. From her neighborhood. From the soil of the track where she grew up.
Her Oak Cliff neighborhood is plagued by the same problems that permeate slums across the country, and raised by her grandmother, Betty Harp, Richardson's life has been plagued by many of the problems common to poverty.
“It's a pretty tough area. You have to do something right,” Michael Johnson said. “It was a pretty good area when I grew up. After I left, it got a lot tougher. By the time Shakari got here, it was a lot rougher. But it was always tough, competition-wise. You had to have character. If you didn't have confidence, you'd be eaten alive.”
Character is the fruit of struggle. Those who survive and thrive do so because they have been able to harvest the intangibles from adversity.
And in North Texas athletics, when hard work and talent combine to produce great results, the athletes’ names spread among their neighbors.
“Have you heard of India Mayberry?” DeHoney said. “She's going to TCU. Have you heard of Nasha Williams? She's going to LSU. Royalty Brown is going to Baylor. Christine Mallard is at USC now. I'm just saying, the amount of talent here is crazy.”
That includes DeHoney's daughter, Kennedy, a sprinter who is attending the University of Memphis on a full scholarship.
Everyone knows the name Sha'Carey Richardson. The next generation can relate to this superstar who not only rose to the top as a local star, but also saw her fall and rise again in the public eye.
It's important in the community of overcomers.

“There's no question who the greatest player to come out of Dallas is,” said longtime area coach Robert DeHoney, “and that's Sha'Carey Richardson.” (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
“People really look up to her,” says Vance Johnson, a host of Texas Track Dads, who interviews area runners for his show. “She's adapted, but her personality hasn't changed. She's a professional, but she's still Shakari. We love that she's inspiring, but we also know she's a professional. I think that's important. It has a big impact. Young athletes look up to her.”
Kristan Bright, 18, is one of those young people who look up to Richardson. And even though the Cedar Hill High School graduate no longer runs for the Blades, he's still on the Carter High School track on this hot summer day. In the thick June warmth, Bright is practicing his hurdles right next to Kennedy Jackson Miles.
Bright's AAU Junior Olympic T-shirt is soaked and tucked under her sports bra. Her face is glistening with sweat. She speaks out of breath after one round of her first two hurdles. She plans to run track in college this fall. In her first meet as a freshman, she ran the 300-meter hurdles in one minute. She was so slow she was cut from the team. It instilled in her the importance of track and field in Dallas. She couldn't graduate like that. So she joined the Cedar Hill Blaze and focused on hurdling.
She just finished her senior season where she competed at the state meet in the 300 meters and placed sixth in Texas in 42.67 seconds, and she also holds the school records in the 100 meters and 300 meter hurdles.
She has Richardson's resilience in her.
“She's really inspirational,” Bright said. “Seeing her story and everything she's been through is so motivating. She's always been the superstar. For me it was a little different. I was the underdog. But once you get in that orbit, it's the same for everybody. You have to create. And it's all fun. It's all good. It's all love. It's community.”

Going deeper
Shakari Richardson dominates qualifying round, moves closer to Olympic glory
(Illustration above: Dan Goldfarb / Athletic(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)