Tasha is a 1988 graduate of Boston Technical High School; better known today as the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science and if you didn’t know, located immediately to the right of this building. I was fortunate enough to meet Tasha a few years ago while she was coaching at Wheaton College in Norton. Being in proximity to our high school track, and not having an outdoor track of their own, she would bring her athletes to our new facility to train. I would make the sprinters on our team stay and watch her team train. Tasha herself was in training and I would just sit there in amazement at watching a world class athlete workout. Out of all our inductees today, Tasha is the only one I can actually say I have seen train and compete. In competitions, there was no fiercer competitor in the late 1980’s in High School Track than Tasha Downing. In those days it didn’t matter where you were on the track scene you would see Tasha’s name. Even to this day, you can see her name in the record books. This spring, if you are at the Mass State Track Coaches Meet, look to see who holds the 100m, 200m, and 400m meet records. If you attend an indoor meet here, look to see who holds the Mass state records in the 300 meter and 600 meter. It’s Tasha. If you go to the New England track and field meet and look at the record book to see who holds the 300 m record, it’s Tasha. Let’s go to the Eastern States Meet, and look to see who holds the three fastest times in the 300 yard run, it’s Tasha. Then if we take it one step further and go to the United States record book and look to see who has the 2nd fastest ever 300 yard run at 34.34, 300 meter run at 37.88, 4th fastest time ever in the 400 meter at 53.59, and look at the 3rd fastest time ever in the 500 meter run at 1:12.05, guess what? It’s Tasha. Oh, we have two more levels to go. Looking at the Pan-American Games in 1986 if you were to notice the Bronze medallist in the 400-meter with a time of 53.61 and look at the list of names on the Gold Medal team in the 4 X 400 you would of course see, Tasha!! And finally for her high school career, I f you were to go to the World Junior Championships in Athens Greece and you were to look who had the 5th fastest time in the world that year in the 400 meters and look to see who was a member of the Gold Medal and American Junior record holders 4 X 400 meter relay team, it would be Tasha!! With performances like this it is no wonder that Tasha was voted Track & Field News’s athlete of the year in 1988, she was an 8-Time Boston Globe All Scholastic, Boston Herald athlete of the year, and the Gatorade Scholastic Circle of Champions player of the year. In fact, Tasha never lost an indoor or outdoor state meet!!! As a 1992 graduate from the University of Florida and on a full track scholarship Tasha was a 6-time NCAA all-American and maybe more importantly a 6-time conference Academic All-American. In 2001 Tasha made her final USA indoor world championship team in the 4X400 running the anchor leg in Lisbon, Portugal. In 2001 she was selected New England Sportswomen of the year and in 2002 Tasha was New England female athlete of the year. Presently she is a physical education teacher as well as a cross-country and track & field coach at Ponce de Leon Middle school in Miami, Florida and on July 2 she will be marrying Kevin Hill who is here along with Tasha’s family and friends. At this time I would like to ask Tasha Downing to come forward and accept her award as an inductee to the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Athlete Hall of Fame.
Class: 1986 Inducted: 2006