In the hallways of University of Texas at Dallas, faint screams ripple along the walls.

It happens to be Coppell High School senior Mohammad Saleh hyping up the crowd to win the ultimate competition: loudest chant.

On April 2-5, Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST), offered competitions ranging from sports, art, Quran recitation and writing. The CHS team stems from the Muslim Student Association (MSA), sending 30 competitors to the regional tournament, with one competitor qualifying for nationals and two becoming Dallas finalists.

“We were way more prepared this year,” said Saleh, who is MSA president. “We started preparing months in advance, we held monthly meetings for MIST and launched our social media page.”

Students competed against participants from both public and private schools, including local islamic schools. Depending on the type of event, The top five competitors advance to the national competition on June 10-12 at St. Louis. Some events, including flag football, are not included at nationals, with winners recognized as Dallas finalists.

First-time competitor, CHS junior Hussain Ali who qualified in short fiction, noticed a high level of intensity from other schools at the competition.

“The first time I went to UTD, I saw that people were already practicing, there was no horseplay and people were serious,” Ali said. “There were schools that even built this competition into their curriculum, and they ended up winning 60% of the placements.”

However, as a team, the goal extends beyond winning. It was to represent CHS and build community.

“We wanted to show that just because we are from a public school does not mean we aren’t going to show up,” Saleh said. “We have to put in our mindset that we should be there and we sold it well enough and had a great time”.

The MSA leadership team went through fundraising and planning months leading up to the tournament to ensure smooth and successful tournament days.

“We had everything planned out, our outfits were coordinated with matching cowboy hats, we had matching bandanas, we bought glow sticks, T-shirts and we had fundraised really well,” Saleh said. “One of the medals that we won was best dressed, that was really something that was impactful for us.”

MIST is not just a place to compete, as community/parent volunteer Huma Husain who has had four kids go through the program.

“These kids come out of MIST with school pride,” Husain said. “They go as a school, a Coppell school.”

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