He was a state runner-up in high school and made the NCAA regionals in college, but Charles Jackson’s desire to run and compete didn’t stop there.

The Molo Middle School physical education teacher has carved out quite a successful track and field career more than a decade since he graduated with a bachelor of science degree and a master’s in exercise physiology from McNeese State.

“I just felt that I still had a little bit more that I wanted to do in track, so I just kept running,” Jackson said.

He has won five national championships over the last few years at the USA Track and Field Masters Outdoor Championships. He says he’s always had a desire to medal on a world stage. He will get that chance next week at the World Masters Athletics Stadia Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden. He will compete in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. The competition begins Tuesday and continues until Aug. 25.

“Anybody can go, but to medal is a whole different thing,” Jackson said. “So I was like, ‘I believe that I can medal.’ And in the 100, for sure, I believe that I can get gold. I wanted to do this Outdoor World Championship. I want to experience that and Indoor World Championship. That’s going to be in the United States in March (2025).”

After college, Jackson competed in the USA Track and Field Indoor national championships from 2016 to 2020 and the Outdoor National Championships in 2019, then switched to the USA Track and Field Masters, which has age groups in five-year increments starting at 25 to 105. Athletes must be at least 35 years of age to compete in the World Masters Stadia Championship.

He won three consecutive USATF 30-34 100-meter national championships from 2021 to 2023 and back-to-back titles in the 200 in 2021 and ’22 before a runner-up finish last year ended his streak in that event. His best-ever time in the 100 is 10.26 and 22.07 in the 200 in 2017.

Last year he ran a 10.74 in the 100 and 22.12 in the 200 at nationals at North Carolina A&T University, but suffered a torn meniscus in January. He was told that surgery might not completely fix it or that recovery time would mean he would miss out on going to Sweden.

“Now, this season has been rough,” Jackson said. “So I’m just blessed to even be able to go.”

It wasn’t until May that he says he felt comfortable enough to start training again.

“I thought I was done. I really did, because in January I was out,” Jackson said. “You know, I just kept the faith. I just kept doing rehab on everything else to strengthen it, to strengthen the rest of my body. But May came around and I was able to do good enough training to build up my confidence. Like, ‘OK, now I can do something with it.’”

While he is not quite up to his marks from last season, Jackson said he recently ran a 10.8 in the 100 and 21.8 in the 200.

Coming out of high school, Jackson, who was the 2006 Louisiana High School Athletic Association Class 2A 100-meter runner-up, wasn’t recruited to run track in college. His favorite sport then was powerlifting.

At Northwestern State he tried football, choir and started a powerlifting club but couldn’t land a scholarship. He transferred to McNeese as a walk-on and eventually earned a scholarship and still ranks in the top 10 in school history in the 100 (10.34)

He has been married for 16 years and has two children, one in elementary school and one in middle school, but managed to stay in shape.

“It’s just a love for the sport and something to do to stay healthy,” Jackson said. “It keeps me healthy. It keeps me motivated to be healthy.”

The World Outdoor and Indoor championships could be his last and he is considering slowing down some.

“I’ll still do stuff to stay in shape, but mainly just these two World Championships,” Jackson said. After that, I’ll probably settle more down.”