Two things are a constant with Painter Richards-Baker ’21.
He has a lot of green in his closet, having played sports for Christ School and now Dartmouth College. And the second is that Painter wins wherever he goes.
The Asheville Citizen-Times announced its All-Western North Carolina Track & Field Team for the 2021 season on Friday with Painter being named the Athlete of the Year for the newspaper’s coverage area, which includes nearly 40 high schools.
Christ School’s Randy Ashley was named Coach of the Year giving the Greenies a sweep of the major awards.
Painter won state championships in the 110-meter high hurdles (14.83 seconds) and 300-meter hurdles (39.17) at last May’s NCISAA Division I meet in Cary. The Greenies placed second as a team with 107 points, which has resulted in Rocky Hansen ’23 (distance), Dawson Reeves ’24 (distance), and Quinton Cancel ’23 (jumps) joining Painter on the All-WNC first team.
Painter has transitioned to college sports this school year and was a wide receiver for Dartmouth's Ivy League championship football team in the fall.
Rocky will enter the 2022 track season for Christ School with the school record for the 1,600-meter run (4:16.61).
The full All-WNC team can be viewed at this link and will be in Saturday’s print edition of the Citizen-Times.