History was made in Austin, but the celebration belonged to South Dallas.

Family members, coaches, classmates, and community supporters gathered Tuesday May 26th, to celebrate the Lincoln High School Lady Tigers after a remarkable season that culminated in a UIL 4A Girls State Track and Field Championship and a place in Texas track and field history.

The championship celebration honored a team that embodied the values displayed across the event’s promotional materials: hard work, dedication, and discipline.

For Athletic Coordinator and Head Track Coach Reginald Bell, those qualities are exactly what made this year’s team special.

“They’re academically sound, they’re individuals of character, and they’re committed to the task,” Bell said. “They’re committed to the task.”

The Lady Tigers’ season reached historic heights at the UIL State Track and Field Championships when the 4×100-meter relay team of Naomi Jones, Aariyah Stanley-Bullock, Sanai Lewis, and Siani Simpson posted a time of 45.86 seconds, breaking a Dallas Carter High School relay record of 45.96 that had stood since 2017. That Carter relay team included future Olympic medalist and world champion sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson.

While the accomplishment has generated statewide attention, the athletes say they knew long before Austin that something special was building.

“I’ll say district,” Naomi Jones said when asked when she realized the team could compete for a championship. “When I saw how we were separating ourselves from the competition, I felt like it was coming to state.”

Aariyah Stanley-Bullock agreed that confidence grew as the team advanced through the postseason.

“We went out there and competed and did a very good job,” she said. “It was a good experience overall.”

The championship roster featured athletes balancing more than just track. Several members of the team also participated in basketball, football, cross country, National Honor Society, and other extracurricular activities.

For Bell, their willingness to embrace difficult training sessions set them apart from previous teams.

“I would say hard work,” Bell said when asked which word best defined the season. “When asked to do challenging things, they accepted the challenge without complaints. That’s what I loved about this team.”

Bell recalled the grueling workouts that laid the foundation for the team’s success.

“Even when it got to the point where we’re doing difficult workouts and training sessions, there were no complaints,” he said. “They worked. I’m not saying they loved it, but they worked.”

Senior Sanai Lewis pointed to dedication as the defining characteristic of the championship run.

“You can tell the group that we went down there with to Austin, that’s the group that showed up the most and wanted it the most, me and my teammates are basketball players. We didn’t have to come out here and run track, but we did it because we wanted to. We were dedicated.”

For Siani Simpson, discipline was the word that best described the team’s journey.

“I’ll say discipline,” Simpson said. “That plays a big part for me. I always try to stand on that in anything I do.”

As the celebration continued, the conversation shifted from championships to legacy.

Lincoln has long been one of Dallas ISD’s premier athletic programs, producing generations of standout athletes and championship teams. The Lady Tigers now know their names will forever be connected to that tradition.

“It feels amazing,” one athlete said during the celebration. “I actually cried.”

The emotion wasn’t limited to the championship itself. Several athletes admitted they didn’t immediately realize they had broken one of the most recognizable relay records in Texas high school track history.

“To be honest, I didn’t know we did it at first,” Lewis said. “I didn’t know we broke the record until we got up on the podium. Then we started seeing it all over social media. I was very proud of myself and my team.”

Stanley-Bullock had a similar reaction.

“I knew we broke a record, but I didn’t know it was hers,” she said. “Then we saw it on social media and I was just excited.”

Simpson said the entire team was surprised by the significance of what they had accomplished.

“Everybody was surprised,” she said. “We thought we had just done our hard work. We didn’t think we had broken that record.”

For Bell, however, the moment carried special meaning.

“I remember being at state the year that record was set,” he said. “When they did it, I knew what was done and I knew who held it, so I had my moment.”

Perhaps no one felt the magnitude of the achievement more deeply than Simpson.

“It was a very surreal moment,” she said. “I’ve always looked up to Sha’Carri. To be a part of a team that broke a record connected to her, it didn’t feel real at first.”

Simpson admitted that the moment brought her to tears.

“Like I said, I cried,” she said. “I always idolized Sha’Carri, so being part of a team that accomplished something like that was special.”

The 2026 Lincoln Lady Tigers may have arrived in Austin chasing a state title, but they returned home with something even greater: a championship trophy, a historic relay record, and a permanent place in Lincoln’s storied athletic legacy.

And for a new generation of young athletes watching from the stands, their journey serves as proof that hard work, dedication, and discipline can still make history.