On a blazing hot day in May, Michael Fields stood on the infield of Pearl High School’s track stadium celebrating his fifth state championship with Hinds AHS.

It was a bittersweet moment, and the last great one for the school that closed at the end of the 2013-14 school year.

On Thursday, however, Fields was smiling once again about the glory days in Utica. The 49-year-old, who is now retired and working as an assistant football coach at St. Aloysius, was selected as the National High School Track and Field Coach of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. It’s the first time the organization has handed out the honor.

It’s an honor Fields said was made possible not just by last year’s championship team, but by all the athletes and coaches he worked with during 12 years at Hinds AHS.

“That’s an award that was years coming. You don’t get that award just by winning the state. That’s all those years of hard work, all the way back to when I started coaching and the first group of kids that I ever coached,” Fields said. “It’s a community thing, and a team thing, and I’m just proud of all those kids and administrators that helped me win that award. It takes more than just you to be successful.”

The USTFCCCA is a non-profit professional organization formed in 2005 and represents cross country and track and field coaches in both high school and college. It has more than 8,000 members nationwide

Fields is not a member of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, but was nominated for the award by another coach in Mississippi.

Fields won the organization’s Mississippi Coach of the Year award earlier this month, then beat out winners from the other 49 states for the national award.

Fields said he was stunned to get the phone call informing him of the bigger prize.

“It was kind of hard to believe at first. Then when I received a few phone calls I realized it was a reality,” Fields said. “I thought it was just a shot in the dark. I never paid attention until they called me a few days ago and told me congratulations.”

Fields was also the football coach at Hinds AHS from 2002-2013. He won the 2008 Vicksburg Post Area Coach of the Year Award, but was even more successful as the Hinds’ track and field coach.

In his 12 years at the helm of the track program, Fields won five team state championships in Class 1A and 2A and led the War Dawgs to runner-up finishes seven times. He’s lost count of the number of individual championships his athletes won, but guessed it was well over 100.

“That’s something we stopped counting a long time ago,” Fields said with a smile.

That figure might be on the conservative side, too. The 2014 team alone won 11 individual titles while rolling to its third consecutive Class 1A team championship. It scored 197 points in the state meet — more than the second- through fifth-place teams combined.

Knowing it was the school’s last hurrah sparked the rout, Fields said, and made it even more special.

“It was real special for the kids. They wanted to prove to everybody that they were the best. They went out and gave 100 percent, and used that as motivation to come out on top,” Fields said. “We had a great day.”

Not long after their championship celebration in Pearl, Fields and his team started going their separate ways.

Most of the returning athletes wound up at Raymond High School. Fields, who had enough service time in the state to retire, joined St. Al’s football staff as a part-time assistant coach.

Fields was happy to be at St. Al, where he’s working with his longtime friend BJ Smithhart, but his former teams at Hinds are never far from his thoughts.

“I just hope wherever they go or whatever happens with them, they get the same treatment and somebody can continue to work with them and care about them,” Fields said.