Micah Richards Salina HS
Mayes County Boys Basketball Poll Winner
By Chris Cox
Salina junior Micah Richards has been playing basketball for about 10 years now and it’s the team aspect that keeps Richards engaged and coming back year in and year out.
“I like competing in team sports,” he says. “I like being a part of team. They become like your family. You get to get realclose to your boys and I like that. You also get to meet new coaches and build relationships with them. That’s awesome.”
Along with playing for his teammates, Richards says he likes to play for the people of Salina.
“I love my hometown,” he says. “I like impressing them. Well, not even impressing them but winning for them. The town always has these fundraisers for us and have our back and we want to go out and play well for them. They put in a lot of time and effort for us, and we want to make the proud.”
As a team, Richards says he and his Wildcat teammates want to finish with a winning record after failing to do so last year. To do that, Richards knows that he will have to improve on his game and is going to be asked to score more this season.
“Last year I passed quite a bit and didn’t look to score as much,” he says. “This year, I want to hit around 15 to 20 points per game. For me to score is going to help the team out.”
Being a top scorer is not a role that Micah has had to play before. With him moving into a new role, he said his preparation for the season had to change.
“I’ve been putting more shots up,” he says. “I’ve spent more time in the gym and just shooting more.”
As a junior, Richards is starting to step into a leadership role for Salina. One thing he likes to do to help prepare his teammates, is make practices as much like a game as possible.
“I like making game-like situations in practice,” he says. “I like getting up in their grill and making them make better decisions.”
Along with basketball, Richards is a member of Salina’s football and baseball teams. He also competes for Salina’s eSports team. Following graduation in roughly a year and half, Richards plans on playing college baseball.
