Miniya Mitchell's support system at the I Promise School grew accustomed to her opening the eyes of opposing track and field coaches as an eighth grader.
The buzz generated by Mitchell's blazing speed even led to I Promise girls track coach Ayesha Cotton receiving requests during track meets this past season.
"Other coaches were like, 'Put her in this event! We want to see her!'" Cotton said during an interview last month at House Three Thirty .
The curiosity of the local track community also applied to where Mitchell would go next.
A member of I Promise's inaugural class, Mitchell recently graduated from the public school that operates in partnership with The LeBron James Family Foundation, and she has moved on to the National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM High School. For STEM students, the new school year began Wednesday .
Mitchell said she will continue her track career in high school by running for Buchtel .
I Promise and Akron Public Schools officials said they expect her to be a force in the City Series and beyond for years to come.
I Promise athletic director Willie McGee told Mitchell he wishes she were returning for another year at I Promise, which launched its club sports programs during the 2022-23 school year with girls and boys basketball, girls and boys track, cheerleading and step dance. He encouraged Mitchell to come back to I Promise and share her story with other student-athletes.
"She's a program changer, and she inspired athletes around her," said McGee, a longtime friend and former St. Vincent-St. Mary High School basketball teammate of James .
Mitchell, 14, began running competitively a few years ago when she joined the N.E.O All Stars Track and Field Club. She has participated in two AAU Junior Olympic Games.
Mitchell's personal-best times are 12.52 seconds in the 100-meter dash, 25.77 in the 200 and 58.42 in the 400.
There is gray area with APS track records because times were not recorded with an electronic-timing system until 2017, Christopher Carzoo, a teacher at Jennings Community Learning Center and the APS middle school track meet director, said by phone. Before 2017, stopwatches were used, Carzoo said.
Still, Carzoo explained the following is certain:
Mitchell owns APS electronic-timing middle school records in the 100, 200 and 400.
Mitchell also anchored I Promise's 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams. And those relay teams set APS electronic-timing middle school records with 52.75 seconds in the 400 and 4 minutes, 37.52 seconds in the 1,600.
Mitchell captured the all-time APS middle school record in the 400, meaning her 58.42 seconds is better than any stopwatch or electronic time ever recorded by APS.
The previous record of 59.6 seconds had been set in 2006 by Kachay Hullum of Perkins Middle School. As a Buchtel senior in 2010, Hullum won a Division I state championship in the 400 (54.67) before running for Ohio State.
I Promise's 400 relay team headlined by Mitchell also claimed an all-time APS middle school record with its time of 52.75 seconds.
To put Mitchell's performance this past track season into context, Carzoo said, "This girl was the most dominant athlete I've ever witnessed."
Born and raised in Akron, Mitchell is setting lofty goals for herself.
"I'm trying to go big. I'm trying to go to the big Olympics," she said.
Cotton said she believes the success of Mitchell, who also played basketball for I Promise, stems from her roots, but not merely because of the athletic genes she inherited from her mother, Daquita Cummings, and father, Edward Mitchell. Track is in the background of both parents.
Mitchell worked hard under the guidance of Cotton and I Promise lead sprint track coach Shawnteona Spires, Cotton said, and Mitchell has carried herself with aplomb.
"Above all else, all season from other coaches, from the APS administrators, they just talked about the character she held," Cotton said. "She doesn't go down there cocky. [Other girls were] talking, 'I'm going to beat her today.' They're pointing her out.
"She'll just pass another record, she waits for them to announce it and she's just sitting there calmly. It teaches our other students how to behave. Everybody's still talking about her without her having to do the smack talk. She let her work and her talent show on the track."
However, Mitchell's composure belies an intensity. Cummings said the youngest of her three daughters is driven by competition.
"She'll go pull up people's records" and use them as motivation, Cummings said.
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With Mitchell establishing a reputation as an elite sprinter well ahead of her first high school track meet, I Promise leaders acknowledge she'll need to manage a mixture of hype and pressure moving forward.
They've heard nothing is given — everything is earned.
"We're confident in her abilities," said Victoria McGee, the senior director of the I Promise School's Family Resource Center. "We're just excited about her future, and, yeah, we're going to be there with her mom and her family supporting her the whole way wherever that journey leads.
"Her footprint and her greatness that she leaves behind at I Promise School is really going to cultivate the environment for other sports and other students to really just be motivated and inspired."
Next spring, it will be the Buchtel track program's turn to watch Mitchell pursue excellence.
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Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich .
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron track star Miniya Mitchell inspires I Promise School
