Hall of Fame
Alton Richards is a distinguished sprinter in track & field who graduated with six school records and won four outdoor conference championships. Richards was a 20-time PSAC Championships place-winner (13 times outdoors, seven times indoors), of which 18 of those performances resulted in All-PSAC (Top 3) finishes. He was a 10-time All-PSAC individual finisher, including three times outdoors in the 100 meters and three times indoors in the 200 meters.
Richards graduated with the indoor and outdoor school records in the 200 meters. He especially exceled as a senior, capping his career by being named the 2005 PSAC Outdoor Championships Co-MVP after winning conference titles in the 100 meters and the 4x400-meter relay, taking third in the 200 meters and running third with the 4x100-meter relay. Indoors as a senior, Richards finished second in the 55 meters and the 200 meters and also with the 4x400-meter relay.
In his sophomore season, Richards set the PSAC Indoor Championships meet record in the 200 meters during prelims. He placed second in the finals of the event and also with the 4x400-meter relay. Outdoors, Richards won the PSAC championship in the 200 meters, took second in the 100 meters, and ran on the third-place 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relays.
As a freshman in 2002, Richards placed third outdoors in the 200 meters and the 400 meters. He also contributed to a PSAC indoor championship in the 4x400-meter relay and placed fifth in the open 400 meters. As a junior in 2004, Richards finished second in the outdoor 100 meters and fifth in the outdoor 200 meters.
Overall, Richards graduated with four school records as a part of relay teams: indoors with the 4x200-meter relay and the 4x400-meter relay, and outdoors with the 4x100-meter relay and the 4x400-meter relay. Shippensburg also was quite prominent as a team during Richards’s tenure, winning three outdoor conference championships (2003-05) and an indoor conference championship (2005). From 2002-05, the Raiders finished either first or second at the PSAC Indoor Championships and the PSAC Outdoor Championships.
On campus, Richards was active with MSA, Afro-Am, and his fraternity. He graduated in 2005 with a degree in sociology and later earned a master’s degree in behavior science from Wilmington in 2010. He served as a big brother and mentor to inner-city youth in Philadelphia.
After his graduation, Richards joined the FBI and now works as a special agent. For many years he worked in California on a Violent Crimes Against Children team that helped save youth victims of human trafficking and child exploitation. He also completed presentations at local high schools in California to educate children against the dangers of predators and trafficking. In 2021, Richards was promoted to Supervisory Special Agent over a Terrorist Unit out of the FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
