Before Cory Ray became one of the most decorated youth sprint coaches in Oklahoma, he was one of its most decorated athletes — a six-time Oklahoma state champion, two-time All-American, and a Junior Nationals competitor at fifteen years old. His personal-best 100m sits among the top all-time marks in Oklahoma history.
He went on to become a record-setting sprinter at the collegiate level and a conference champion. But the part of his story that matters most starts the season after he stopped competing.
A coach in Memphis, Tennessee — a track legend named Rodney Peterson — had done for him what coaches do when they're paying attention. As Cory tells it: “What started as a dare turned into him sowing seeds into myself I didn't see in myself.”
When Cory's own competitive career wound down, the thing he wanted to do next was return that favor, at scale. He moved into performance coaching across football, basketball, soccer, baseball, and track & field — anywhere there was an athlete who needed speed.
What he kept noticing was the gap. Most programs trained athletes or mentored them. Few did both, and almost none did both in a way that traveled with a kid from middle school through their college signing. That gap is what he set out to close — first as a coach, now as Director of Oklahoma Cheetah.
Every athlete who walks through our door gets a long-term plan built around where they are — not where everyone else is. Here's how we coach.
Our philosophy is rooted in long-term athlete development. We look at every kid on an individual basis, build a game plan around exactly where they are right now, and stay relentless in pursuit of where they're going next.
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.
Everything we coach sits on top of one idea, borrowed from Aristotle and stitched into every practice: "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 discipline is the judgment.
The standard doesn't move because the weather did. Run the workout in front of you — every rep, every time.
Block start angles. Hip position out of the curve. Recovery between reps. Speed is built in the small things 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.
Career outcomes from Cory's coaching — current state record holders, state champions, and team titles. Real Oklahoma athletes, real podium finishes.
All five records currently held by athletes coached within the Oklahoma Cheetah program. * 100m Hurdles record coached by Coach Rodney Burkes during his time at the OKC chapter.
The next decade is about depth, not just numbers — and about leaving a track & field legacy in the state of Oklahoma by consolidating the talent here.
Good athletes get sharper by training against other good athletes. When the best athletes in the state share lanes, share workouts, share standards — they all get better. That's the principle. Iron sharpens iron.
The job over the next ten years is to give those athletes the tools and resources to be uber successful — and the exposure to leverage their talent into a college scholarship. And then to keep them in the family long after they've outgrown the practice schedule.
Iron sharpens iron.
