Forty-eight years of Oklahoma athletes, two cities, one standard. We're built for the parent who wants their kid in a program that actually does what it says — and for the kid who's ready to chase real goals.
No mystery, no marketing language. Four words every Cheetah, current or alumni, knows by heart.
“Track family” isn’t a tagline — it’s a structure. Parents at the rail, older athletes mentoring younger ones, coaches who text after a hard race. The community is the curriculum.
There is one standard, and it doesn’t move. We don’t grade on a curve or dilute the workout because the day was hot. We hold the line because we know what’s on the other side of it.
We hold each other to what we said we’d do. Athletes account for the effort. Coaches account for the plan. The standard only holds when everyone is willing to be measured by it.
We coach the process, not the result. Athletes who win at this level aren’t the ones who showed up to one good workout — they’re the ones who trusted the program when it was hard, boring, or slow. Reps over highlights.
Join before 16 and you've earned the spot. No qualifying in, no qualifying out — come to us in any condition, new to track or returning from another sport, and we meet you where you are.
Join at 16 or older and you'll need to meet a qualifying standard — earned on the clock or at the state final. That's the bar for new members coming in at the high-school level.
But what we teach isn't just track. It's how to commit, how to lose and come back, how to be coachable, how to be a teammate. The standards show up everywhere — on the football field, the basketball court, in the classroom. Track is the vehicle. The lessons are the point.
Once a Cheetah, always a Cheetah. For life.
Our coaching philosophy is rooted in long-term athlete development. We treat every kid as an individual, build a game plan around exactly where they are right now, and stay relentless about where they're going.
That means starting small and dreaming big — and treating goal-setting as a core training tool, not an afterthought. Athletes who know what they're chasing run differently than athletes who don't.
It also means trusting that good athletes get sharper by training against other good athletes. When the best kids in the state share lanes, share workouts, share standards — they all get better. Iron sharpens iron.
Everything sits on top of one idea: "We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act but a habit."
Doing the right thing in the right moment, over a long period of time. Sometimes that's the workout. Sometimes that's rest.
The standard doesn't move because the weather did. Run the workout in front of you — every rep, every time.
The small things compound. Block angles, recovery, body position, sleep, hydration — speed is built in the details first.
Good enough isn't the goal. Better than yesterday is. Excellence isn't a destination — it's the direction we run in.
To your coach. To your teammates. To the family. To the version of yourself you said you were going to become this season.
Cheetah didn't start in Oklahoma. It started in Detroit in 1978, with a coach named Harry Weaver and a promise that hasn't changed since.
Detroit Cheetah was founded in 1978 to do one thing — train young athletes the way professionals get trained, while never losing the family-first culture that made kids actually want to show up. Coach Harry Weaver II built the model. Thirty national champions, eighty-three youth All-Americans, and four Olympic qualifiers later, the program had earned its receipts.
In 2018, Coach Weaver and Coach Cory Ray brought the Cheetah model to Tulsa — same standards, same mentorship, new generation of Oklahoma athletes. In 2022, Coaches Rodney Burkes and Melvin Lister III opened the Oklahoma City chapter. Two cities. One family.
Today, Director Cory Ray leads the Oklahoma program across both chapters, with head coaches Derio Long in Tulsa and Melvin Lister III in OKC. The work — and the family — keeps growing.
Oklahoma Cheetah outcomes since 2018 — on the staff, in the program, on the way to college.
Show up willing. Run the workout in front of you. The athletes who win at this level are the ones who never let intensity slip when no one's watching.
Bring something to the track. The energy you give multiplies — to your teammates, to your coaches, to the workout itself. Joy is a competitive advantage.
Do the thing. Repeatedly. With precision. Talent gets noticed; execution gets recruited. We coach you to deliver when the lane assignment matters.
