Miami Northwestern Honors Olympic Gold Medalist Brianna Rollins

Olympic gold medalist Brianna Rollins returned to Miami Northwestern Senior High where as a young freshman she got her first introduction to track & field.

She was showered with plaques, certificates and a proclamation that Sept. 15 will forever be known as Brianna Rollins Day. 

The admittedly shy athlete sported a white USA jersey and around her neck, her gold medal.

She said she is where she is today because Northwestern track coach Carmen Jackson, who still leads the Lady Bulls track team, gave her a chance.

“She gave me a chance and that chance took me so far,” she said to an auditorium filled with students.  “If I didn’t come here, I don’t know where I would be honestly.  It has taken me so far.”

Back then, Rollins was a skinny girl with no prior experience in organized sports. She walked into Coach Jackson’s office and said, “I want to join track.”

Rollins’ rise to Olympic fame hits a very personal note in Liberty City and at Northwestern. It’s a school, like many schools in struggling neighborhoods, with its share of challenges.

Coach Jackson, before presenting Rollins with a Miami Northwestern book bag, listed some of the hardships that students at the school have faced.

Fractured families. Homelessness. Poverty.

But she quickly reminded students that adversity, though trying, is not a measure of whether or not they will be successful.

“That can’t stop you.  We’re at a school called ‘The West’ where we will meet those needs -- no matter what,” she said.  “If you lack money we’re still gonna go…don’t have any clothes, we’re still gonna make it… don’t have running water, we’re still gonna make it. “

Jackson said it frustrates her how the school is constantly stereotyped because it’s in the inner city.

“Great things come out of Miami Northwestern,” she said proudly.

Miami-Dade School Board Vice-Chair Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall echoed those sentiments in a more colloquial way.

“Tell them don’t play with us,” said Bendross-Mindingall who is also from Liberty City and graduated from Miami Northwestern. “ Tell them don’t sleep on us. Put some respect on our name.”