Niwot’s Isaiah Richart isn’t letting his disabilities keep from anything — including gold – Boulder Daily Camera
NIWOT — Inside a track and field program stuffed with collegiate stars, and often Olympians, is the boy who couldn’t walk. Born in the country of Burkina Faso, Isaiah Richart spent the first years of his life in an orphanage. And though much of the detail around those years are murky, more can be pieced […]
NIWOT — Inside a track and field program stuffed with collegiate stars, and often Olympians, is the boy who couldn’t walk.
Born in the country of Burkina Faso, Isaiah Richart spent the first years of his life in an orphanage. And though much of the detail around those years are murky, more can be pieced together.
Within a day of giving birth to Isaiah — her seventh child — his mother died from hemorrhaging, leaving Isaiah without any other family willing or capable of taking him in. His early caregivers weren’t sure what the future held for the child. Especially as he suffered through several early illnesses, including bouts of malaria that left his body depleted and his cognitive development impaired.
At nearly 3, he still wasn’t walking. There was hope, maybe someday he could, by the grace of God. At least coming from his future parents who were waiting in Longmont.
“We prayed,” Jessie Richart remembered.
She and her husband Ross believe in the power of prayer and said it helped their adopted son walk by the time they picked him up in October of 2013. They weren’t given any other reason for it.
Jessie, a special education teacher in Longmont, and Ross, who has been a police officer in Boulder for more than two decades, were already in the business of helping others. Though they had two kids of their own, they sought out what more they could do. And adoption just felt right.
They worked with an agency. Then more than one. In the middle of the process, this out of Rwanda, they suffered disappointment when its country officials suddenly shut things down.
Finally, after 18 arduous months, they were able to pick up their new son. And today, 11 years later, he is a freshman at Niwot High School who — and you couldn’t make this up — runs track.
Two weeks ago, in fact, Isaiah won gold in the Unified 100- and 200-meter runs at the state meet.
Niwot’s Isaiah Richart won a pair of Unified sprint distance races at the state championships last month, and track coach Maurice Henriques envisions Richart getting a chance to compete in varsity relays with continued training. (Cliff Grassmick/Staff Photographer)
“Just keep going no matter what,” Isaiah said when asked about his first season in high school track. “Just keep going, (even) if it hurts.”
The kind of attitude Niwot’s track and field coach loves to hear from his young athletes.
Maurice Henriques, better known as Coach Mo around the sport, played football for Bill McCartney at the University of Colorado in the 1990s. And like Coach Mac (who died in January after a long battle with dementia), the 52-year-old coach evaluates success with a long lens.
Reflecting on his own story, Henriques could start with the worst day of his life. Forty-three years ago, he recalled, his dad snapped, shooting and killing his sister and her boyfriend before jumping to his own death.
His dad’s last words to him were to take care of his mother, who would teach her son the importance of focusing on the two things in life you can control: attitude and effort. With hard work in those areas, she instilled into him that the possibilities are endless.
In his decades of coaching, Henriques has seen the power of his mother’s words in action. He remembers Jessica Watkins jotting down her desire to be an astronaut in a written exercise he’d assigned her back when he was the coach at Fairview in the early 2000s. Three years ago, Watkins became the first Black woman to serve on a long-duration space mission.
Elise Cranny, too. When she was a junior at Niwot, she marked down that she wanted to be an Olympian. And Henriques sent her the paper she wrote, ahead of her first of two Olympic Games in 2021.
“I think sometimes as adults in our society, we want to put people in boxes,” Henriques said. “And we’re not putting Isaiah in a box. Man, it’d be cool, that by his senior year, he’s on our 4×100 team at state.” He then doubles down on the notion. “He’s fast enough, and we should be able to teach him what he needs to do to be able to do that. You’re talking about a story. That would be a great story.”
It wouldn’t be the first great story about Isaiah, who despite disabilities had times from this past track season that gives Henriques vision merit.
Isaiah won the Unified 100 at state in 13.07 seconds, while his personal-best time on the year was slightly under 13. That’s promising considering the average leg for the last-placed boys’ 4×100 team at the state meet clocked in at 12.4.
“Yeah, Isaiah smoked cats,” Torrey Staton said.
Staton is a paraeducator for the school. He assists Isaiah and other special-needs students in anything from academics to athletics. He was the reason Isaiah first got involved with the track team, saying after he saw the freshman’s athleticism early into the school year he thought it could be a great fit.
“I said early on to Isaiah, ‘You’re going to be the fastest in Colorado,’” said Staton, who’d been convinced about the school’s track program years earlier, so much so that he and his son Kingston trek from their Arvada home to be a part of it. “I told him he is going to win Unified and it was going to be by a landslide.” He laughs. “And it wasn’t by a landslide, but he absolutely did win.”
The whole experience was fun, Isaiah said.
But he still prefers basketball.
“I just complain the whole time,” Staton said about working with Isaiah on his shot during gym class. “I’m like, ‘Get your elbow in!’”
Isaiah is always looking for ways to improve.
In track, he blossomed socially, too, something that would’ve been hard to imagine when he first came to the U.S. and only knew a broken variation of the African tribal language called Mooré and French. He’d asked his parents for yogurt in French when he got to his new home, then ate tons of it. His first word in English came quickly, “candy” — just in time for Halloween.
LAKEWOOD: Niwot’s Isaiah Richart running at the state track and field meet in May. (Photo courtesy of Jessie Richart. By David Anthony)
Today, his conversations are deeper. Isaiah is still quiet by nature out in public. But when comfortable, he often shares his thoughts about life and the world as he sees it. And those closest to him say they can’t get enough of his sense of humor. His dad sets him up, asking if he thinks his older brother would be any good at track. Isaiah deadpans, “Uh, probably not.”
Staton is let in, too.
“He is a slew of unknown knowledge,” Staton said. “Like he’ll say something about tsunamis or about galaxies, like something so random. He’s just a great kid. Awesome kid.”
Isaiah found kinship in his competition, too.
At one race this past season, he took some playful trash-talk from another Unified athlete, who told him he hopes he enjoys the view of his backside. Shortly after Isaiah handily beat everyone, Staton recalled, the other kid came up to say, “Wow, I didn’t know you’d be that fast. I don’t think I’ll ever be that fast.”
At another, Isaiah told someone else on the starting line that he hoped they would win.
“He just says that,” his dad recalls with a smile. “Just very nicely, ‘I hope you win this race.’ The Unified athletes are all very kind. They’re competitive, but they’re just very kind to one another.”
By the team’s year-end banquet, his mom still thought Isaiah would stay by her side. But he didn’t. When she found him, he was fist-bumping teammates. “They’ve embraced him,” she smiled.
He’s the boy who couldn’t walk. But now, he has certainly found his stride. “And,” his dad adds, “he has more in the tank.”
View a list of Prep sports and high school teams we cover.
Five Newberry College Track & Field athletes earn CSC Academic All-District honors
NEWBERRY — Five Newberry College track and field athletes were named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District® Track and Cross Country Team. Irma Watson-Perez, Andrea Pascual Rivera, ShaNadia Marshall, Drew Benson and Addison O’Cain all earned the honor. Student-athletes must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) […]
NEWBERRY — Five Newberry College track and field athletes were named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District® Track and Cross Country Team.
Irma Watson-Perez, Andrea Pascual Rivera, ShaNadia Marshall, Drew Benson and Addison O’Cain all earned the honor.
Student-athletes must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) and must rank in the top-50 regional ranking in single event to earn academic all-district honors.
Watson-Perez (Biology), Pascual Rivera (Psychology) and Marshall (Exercise Science & Human Performance) all graduated in May.
Benson (Nursing) and O’Cain (Exercise Science) are both undergraduates.
K-State volleyball prioritizes roster retention, head coach says
MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) – The K-State volleyball team is one of two Division I programs nationwide that didn’t have a single player enter the transfer portal at the end of last season. “We’re really proud of that and I think it speaks to their love for K-State,” Mansfield said. “It really speaks for how much […]
MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) – The K-State volleyball team is one of two Division I programs nationwide that didn’t have a single player enter the transfer portal at the end of last season.
“We’re really proud of that and I think it speaks to their love for K-State,” Mansfield said. “It really speaks for how much they love each other. I think they really, genuinely like being around each other.
“You gotta believe in kids, you know?” Mansfield continued. “I think in this transfer portal phase there’s a lot of, oh, we could’ve gotten a better player or there’s someone better out there. For us it’s always about development.”
Mansfield said when you show loyal to players, they’ll pay it back.
“We’re trying to coach kids for four or five years and stay on the path that they’re on and help them grow and get better,” he added. “Loyalty is a big deal to me, I want them to know we care about them and want to see them get better and continue to grow.”
Beach volleyball in the Intuit Dome? AVP players embrace their new digs
Devon Newberry is closing in on two years as a professional beach volleyball player. Yet for the last 731 days, “professional” has always felt like an elusive label. The former UCLA standout is accustomed to life as a beach volleyball player — hauling her equipment on the beach, tugging her bag across the uneven sand […]
Devon Newberry is closing in on two years as a professional beach volleyball player. Yet for the last 731 days, “professional” has always felt like an elusive label.
The former UCLA standout is accustomed to life as a beach volleyball player — hauling her equipment on the beach, tugging her bag across the uneven sand while weaving through sunbathers and surfboards. She’s used to hearing provisional bleachers creak under sunscreen-slathered fans as music buzzes through nearby portable speakers.
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There’s charm in that chaos. But it’s nothing like the entrance Newberry made Friday at the Intuit Dome.
Above her, the sweeping halo scoreboard glowed, flashing beneath the thump of blasting pop anthems. Around her, where NBA chants once echoed, beach volleyball fans cheered. And strangest of all, tons of sand created a faux indoor shoreline.
After two years chasing it, Newberry found her label.
Read more: 300 tons of sand trucked into Intuit Dome to create unique AVP beach volleyball venue
“I walked into the Intuit Dome today and I was like, ‘I feel like a professional athlete walking in,’” Newberry said. “I haven’t felt like that as a beach player. There’s very rare moments when you’re like, ‘Wow, I am really a professional athlete.’ And when I was going underground here and looking all around me, I was like, ‘I really am a professional athlete.’ And that’s because we’re playing at the Intuit Dome.”
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In what began as a head-scratcher for the players themselves, 300 tons of sand were poured into the Intuit Dome, turning the Clippers’ arena into a pop-up beach — where the L.A. Launch kept their perfect run afloat for the start of AVP League Week 5.
The Launch struck first and last — with Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon opening with a win, and Hagen Smith and Logan Webber closing it out — both pairs dismantling the San Diego Smash. Sandwiched between those victories, Palm Beach Passion’s men’s and women’s teams both made quick work of the Miami Mayhem.
The moment Newberry described — descending into an NBA arena re-imagined as a sand-strewn battleground — was the AVP’s moonshot: to re-imagine the sport in lights, not solely sunlight.
“Playing in such an amazing place, brand new building, with everything going on, with the new building around here, it’s really cool,” said 2016 Olympian Chaim Schalk. “To get to play at such an iconic arena is an honor.”
Logan Webber of the L.A. Launch spikes over Chase Budinger of the San Diego Smash at the Intuit Dome on Friday night. (Joe Scarnici / Getty Images)
Beach volleyball rarely has ventured beyond its coastal roots. But at the Intuit Dome, the sport embraced a new direction.
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“This shows that beach volleyball is growing and it’s trying to adapt to the world we live in, finding a new way for fans to interact with the players, and new ways for the sport to be exciting,” said Chase Budinger, a former NBA player who became a beach volleyball player. “This will get more people in the stands because it’s so new and so different.”
In place of sun-worshiping fans camped out on makeshift bleachers, parents lounged on cushioned seats as kids nestled beside them balancing chicken wings and pizzas on their laps.
The sport welcomed a combination of newcomers hunting for Friday night entertainment and AVP devotees.
“There’s so many people who love beach volleyball, and so many people who would love beach volleyball if they were just given the opportunity to go watch,” Newberry said. “And not everybody can make it out.”
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Read more: How Chase Budinger went from the NBA to playing beach volleyball in the Olympics
Change comes with tradeoffs. With no wind, the court became something of a power chamber — the compact sand lending itself to higher and cleaner jumps, the still air enabling blistering serves and monstrous spikes that might have drifted wide on the beach.
Rallies became quicker and tighter. The margin for error shrank, tightening the grip on the crowd.
“For a lot of people watching beach volleyball for the first time, it’s really hard to conceptualize how wind, how deep the sand is, might affect play,” Newberry said. “So it feels like more of an even playing field which allows everybody to watch really entertaining volleyball.”
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By re-imagining the boundaries of where its sport can potentially thrive, the AVP might have sketched out a novel blueprint for other sports.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if other sports follow and start expanding their ideas of where they could play,” said Olympic silver medalist Brandie Wilkerson. “I’m excited to see where this is going to go and see other sports try to catch up.”
Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Ten members of SAU cross country/track and field named to CSC Academic All-District Team | Southern Arkansas University Sports
Ten Southern Arkansas University student-athletes for cross country and track and field have been named to the 2025 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team. Representing the Muleriders on the 2025 CSC Academic All-District team are Lyndon Orr, Garrett Hughes, Bo Rogers, Jason Patrick, Korbin McAuliffe, Logan Warren, Alyzah McGlasson, Breyonna Steward, Kailyn Thomas, and Anaya […]
Ten Southern Arkansas University student-athletes for cross country and track and field have been named to the 2025 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team.
Representing the Muleriders on the 2025 CSC Academic All-District team are Lyndon Orr, Garrett Hughes, Bo Rogers, Jason Patrick, Korbin McAuliffe, Logan Warren, Alyzah McGlasson, Breyonna Steward, Kailyn Thomas, and Anaya Ervin.
Men’s Cross Country/Track & Field
Lyndon Orr (Junior)
Major – Accounting
Minor – Criminal Justice
GPA – 3.80
Garrett Hughes (Sophomore)
Major – Engineering
GPA – 3.98
Bo Rogers (Sophomore)
Major – Chemistry: Pre-Health Prof Biochem
GPA – 3.77
Jason Patrick Jr. (Junior)
Major – Physical Education & Health K-12
GPA – 3.66
Korbin McAuliffe (Senior)
Major – Business Admin: Supply Chain Management
GPA – 3.81
Women’s Cross Country/Track & Field
Logan Warren (Senior)
Major – Biology: Pre-Health
GPA – 3.58
Alyzah McGlasson (Grad.)
Major – Public Admin: Social Entrepreneurship
GPA (Undergrad) – 3.96
GPA (Grad) – 4.00
Breyonna Steward (Junior)
Major – Exercise Science: Strength & Conditioning
GPA – 3.61
Kailyn Thomas (Senior)
Major – Chemistry: Forensic Science
GPA – 3.70
Anaya Ervin (Junior)
Major – Biology: Pre-Health
GPA – 3.50
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Beach volleyball in the Intuit Dome? AVP embraces its new digs
Devon Newberry is closing in on two years as a professional beach volleyball player. Yet for the last 731 days, “professional” has always felt like an elusive label. The former UCLA standout is accustomed to life as a beach volleyball player — hauling her equipment on the beach, tugging her bag across the uneven sand […]
Devon Newberry is closing in on two years as a professional beach volleyball player. Yet for the last 731 days, “professional” has always felt like an elusive label.
The former UCLA standout is accustomed to life as a beach volleyball player — hauling her equipment on the beach, tugging her bag across the uneven sand while weaving through sunbathers and surfboards. She’s used to hearing provisional bleachers creak under sunscreen-slathered fans as music buzzes through nearby portable speakers.
There’s charm in that chaos. But it’s nothing like the entrance Newberry made Friday at the Intuit Dome.
Above her, the sweeping halo scoreboard glowed, flashing beneath the thump of blasting pop anthems. Around her, where NBA chants once echoed, beach volleyball fans cheered. And strangest of all, tons of sand created a faux indoor shoreline.
After two years chasing it, Newberry found her label.
“I walked into the Intuit Dome today and I was like, ‘I feel like a professional athlete walking in,’” Newberry said. “I haven’t felt like that as a beach player. There’s very rare moments when you’re like, ‘Wow, I am really a professional athlete.’ And when I was going underground here and looking all around me, I was like, ‘I really am a professional athlete.’ And that’s because we’re playing at the Intuit Dome.”
In what began as a head-scratcher for the players themselves, 300 tons of sand were poured into the Intuit Dome, turning the Clippers’ arena into a pop-up beach — where the L.A. Launch kept their perfect run afloat for the start of AVP League Week 5.
The Launch struck first and last — with Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon opening with a win, and Hagen Smith and Logan Webber closing it out — both pairs dismantling the San Diego Smash. Sandwiched between those victories, Palm Beach Passion’s men’s and women’s teams both made quick work of the Miami Mayhem.
The moment Newberry described — descending into an NBA arena re-imagined as a sand-strewn battleground — was the AVP’s moonshot: to re-imagine the sport in lights, not solely sunlight.
“Playing in such an amazing place, brand new building, with everything going on, with the new building around here, it’s really cool,” said 2016 Olympian Chaim Schalk. “To get to play at such an iconic arena is an honor.”
Logan Webber of the L.A. Launch spikes over Chase Budinger of the San Diego Smash at the Intuit Dome on Friday night.
(Joe Scarnici / Getty Images)
Beach volleyball rarely has ventured beyond its coastal roots. But at the Intuit Dome, the sport embraced a new direction.
“This shows that beach volleyball is growing and it’s trying to adapt to the world we live in, finding a new way for fans to interact with the players, and new ways for the sport to be exciting,” said Chase Budinger, a former NBA player who became a beach volleyball player. “This will get more people in the stands because it’s so new and so different.”
In place of sun-worshiping fans camped out on makeshift bleachers, parents lounged on cushioned seats as kids nestled beside them balancing chicken wings and pizzas on their laps.
The sport welcomed a combination of newcomers hunting for Friday night entertainment and AVP devotees.
“There’s so many people who love beach volleyball, and so many people who would love beach volleyball if they were just given the opportunity to go watch,” Newberry said. “And not everybody can make it out.”
Change comes with tradeoffs. With no wind, the court became something of a power chamber — the compact sand lending itself to higher and cleaner jumps, the still air enabling blistering serves and monstrous spikes that might have drifted wide on the beach.
Rallies became quicker and tighter. The margin for error shrank, tightening the grip on the crowd.
“For a lot of people watching beach volleyball for the first time, it’s really hard to conceptualize how wind, how deep the sand is, might affect play,” Newberry said. “So it feels like more of an even playing field which allows everybody to watch really entertaining volleyball.”
By re-imagining the boundaries of where its sport can potentially thrive, the AVP might have sketched out a novel blueprint for other sports.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if other sports follow and start expanding their ideas of where they could play,” said Olympic silver medalist Brandie Wilkerson. “I’m excited to see where this is going to go and see other sports try to catch up.”
Aaron Jessee join’s head coach Craig Martin’s volleyball staff for his first season at Stonehill in 2024-25. Jessee is also an assistant coach for his alma mater’s men’s volleyball team, entering his second season with the Endicott men’s volleyball program. Jessee had a standout career with the Gulls’ volleyball program from 2011-14 . As a […]
Aaron Jessee join’s head coach Craig Martin’s volleyball staff for his first season at Stonehill in 2024-25.
Jessee is also an assistant coach for his alma mater’s men’s volleyball team, entering his second season with the Endicott men’s volleyball program. Jessee had a standout career with the Gulls’ volleyball program from 2011-14 .
As a team, Endicott produced an 82-52 (.612) overall record and a 49-3 (.942) conference mark during his career. The Gulls won two New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) championships (2013-14) and advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals for the first time in program history in 2014.
Overall, the team made four conference postseason appearances, including two Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) finalists trips, and two visits to the NCAA Tournament.
Jessee’s career stats include 377 sets played (128 matches) and 650 digs (1.72 digs per set). Jessee still ranks top-10 all-time in Endicott men’s volleyball history in reception percentage (.958; 1,729 receptions), sets played, and matches played.
He earned his Bachelor of Science in sport management with two minors in business administration and applied mathematics from Endicott in 2014.
Jessee currently serves as the CEO of Kintsugi Movement, which is a functional rehabilitative and sports performance company that provides in-home and virtual care, as well as clinics, seminars, and educational content.
He also is board member of the International Volleyball Hall of Fame.
‘WHAT DEFINES GREATNESS?’ | First Take
