This CT girls track team chases a 36th state championship
BLOOMFIELD – Anne Burrows threw the shot, discus and hammer in high school and college. Her first coaching job was coaching the throwers at Bloomfield High.
When she took over the Warhawks girls track team as the head coach, she suddenly realized she had to start coaching the track athletes, too.
“I was like, ‘Oh man, what am I supposed to do with these runners?’” she said, laughing. “I was a thrower at Central (Connecticut). I wasn’t on the track running, so I had a lot to learn.
“It’s a whole different world. I used to call the old head coach daily. ‘What am I supposed to do with them? What if I put the wrong kids in the relay?’ It was such a culture shock.”
That was 2011. By that point, the Bloomfield girls had already won state outdoor track titles five of the last six years – 14 total – and three State Open titles.
But Burrows was a quick learner, and she leaned on Bloomfield boys coach Garfield White and former coach Krystal McKenzie for help. Plus she also already had a lot of talent and a group of girls who didn’t want to lose.
Her first season coaching outdoors, in 2012, Bloomfield won the State Open. The team consisted of seven girls, including sisters Natori (who won the long jump and high jump) and Adrian Jones.
“We’re at the Open and (the former coach) Krystal looks over and she goes, ‘You know you’re winning this, right?’ Burrows said. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ I’d never coached and won the State Open even as an assistant. I wasn’t even thinking about it.”
Since then, the Bloomfield girls have won either the Class S or Class M outdoor track title every year – but one – and won five more State Open outdoor championships, including the last two. This year’s Warhawk team, which won the State Open indoor title in March, is poised to win more. Bloomfield will compete Sunday for the Class M outdoor championship at Willow Brook Park in New Britain and will head back there on June 7 to compete for a third straight State Open title.
The Warhawks are no slouches on the indoor track either, winning four State Opens between 2017-25 and the last 15 Class S indoor championships. But the winning culture at Bloomfield isn’t just about the girls. The boys have won 17 division titles outdoors and three State Opens and the two teams motivate and support each other.
“She did expand the team, it’s been impressive to watch over the years,” said White. “We were really focused on the (100 meters), the (200 meters) and the (4×100 relay). The throwers were up and coming. She made a conscious effort to open up the girls all the way to the 800. It took some time and now you see the results.
“A lot of coaches try to expand their team and they lose the essence of their team doing it. She did a good job expanding and kept the core and kept the mentality of the team together.”
Burrows said about 75 percent of her athletes go on to compete in college. Nine of the 11 seniors this year will compete at the next level next year.
There’s a long line of talented athletes who have come from Bloomfield, like Celeste Halliday, who graduated in 1985 and went on to star at Villanova, and Stacey-Ann Smith, an All-American sprinter at the University of Texas. Then there’s State Open long jump and triple jump champ Adia Cavalier, who competed for Wagner, Towson and AIC and now coaches the boys and girls long jumpers at Bloomfield. Then there are the current group that includes junior Vanessa Agyemang, a transfer from Classical Magnet who won the 55 hurdles and long jump at the State Open Indoor championships.
“I’ve had my share of success in the past but coming here, I’ve been more exposed to the idea of it,” said Agyemang, who also won the New England long jump indoor title in March. “It comes with the type of training we get, the type of coaches we have, the type of mindset we have. There are times when you come to practice and you just don’t want to do anything. The coaches have the mindset, ‘You might not want to do anything right now, but this is how we win.’”
‘This is what we’re good at’
Junior D’Asia Duncan was the State Open runner-up in the 100 and 300 hurdles last year. She has also dabbled in running the 800, which no one else really wants to do at Bloomfield, but she doesn’t mind.
“I feel like when you’re on a team with a lot of great athletes it drives you to be a better athlete,” Duncan said. “We know each other’s abilities; we try to be supportive and push each other to produce the best results.”
Burrows doesn’t even bother to try to get kids to run in the 1,600 or the 3,200. Duncan will compete against her teammate Agyemang in the Class M 100 hurdles Sunday; they are the top two seeds. Bloomfield has five of the top six seeds in the 400 meters.
“This is what they’re good at, so we do what we’re good at,” Burrows said.
Burrows has a rule: Everyone has to do a sport in the fall before indoor and outdoor track. She doesn’t want kids sitting at home doing nothing. She coaches cross country so the majority of the girls do that.
Bloomfield girls track coach Anne Burrows talks to boys coach Garfield White Thursday at practice. (Photo by Lori Riley)
But they don’t enjoy it (except for Duncan, who doesn’t mind it) and they let Burrows know.
“They hate it,” Burrows said. “I don’t know if I want to call it cross country, it’s a bunch of my sprinters out there complaining and telling me they don’t want to be there.
“It’s a good chance to get in shape. Once we hit this hallway (for indoor training), if you’re not in shape, you’re not getting in shape running in the hallway in the winter. You need to have some kind of base, you need to have done something, I don’t care, volleyball, soccer but just not going home, sitting around. We also lift a lot during cross country season.”
What it comes down to, in the end, is winning. The Bloomfield gym is full of track banners, boys and girls, crowding out the other sports. Nobody wants to be on the Bloomfield team that loses a state title, that breaks a streak. The Bloomfield girls won their first state title in 1988 and won eight straight. From 2008, the Warhawks won 12 straight class championships, until 2021, when they lost the Class S title to East Hampton, 99.1-97.6.
“It hurt my soul,” Burrows said. “People were like, ‘How did you lose? I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ That one was hard. You have to answer to the alumni like, ‘What do you mean, they dropped the streak?’
“That was a rough year, the year after COVID, keeping the kids motivated during that time. We had a rough meet. Nothing went right for us.”
Bloomfield hasn’t lost since.
Bloomfield assistant coach Adia Cavalier, who coaches the boys and girls throwers, said each Bloomfield team wants to be better than the one before it. (Photo by Lori Riley)
This year’s team is particularly talented. The 2017 team, which won the State Open, was considered the best team ever at Bloomfield, with sprinter Jillian Mars (who competed at Georgetown), hurdler Zaidra James and Cavalier, among others. But this year’s team is pushing for that designation.
“I would say it has to do with – we hear it all the time – not wanting to be the class that ends the streak and continue dominating,” Cavalier said. “Wanting to be better than the other classes, especially my 2017 class. I get messages and calls, like, ‘Your class is not the GOATs anymore.’”
Said Burrows: “No one wants to lose, especially when you come from Bloomfield. I’ve been lucky with the incredible talent these kids have. This underclassmen group is probably the most talented group of kids I’ve ever had. My junior class and Saphir Brown from the sophomore class. They’re doing things on the track and in the field that’s above and beyond.”