Unfortunately, in the sport of cross country, there is a general consensus in the athletic world that distance runners, run distance because they can’t do anything else. Well, let them ponder this one. On a cold crisp Fall Friday night and on a cool Saturday morning in November of 1990, Andy Downin proved these nay sayers wrong and did so in dramatic fashion. On a crisp fall Friday night in his senior year, Andy would score the winning goal in a 5 overtime state tournament play-off soccer match. He would then rise early the next morning lace on the spikes and win the Division III eastern Mass Individual Cross Country Championship. The MIAA no longer allows an athlete to participate in two sports in the same season, so this will truly be a historical event which will be forever be in the annuls of Massachusetts Sporting lore. In a 1991 Boston Globe newspaper, reporter Paul Harber asked in an article, “Is Andy Downin the best all-around athlete in Duxbury? He is after all an all-scholastic soccer player, a midfielder for Div. 2 state soccer finalist, he is a championship cross-country runner and he will compete in the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 1 as a miler. It turns out that Andy was just the ninth miler from Massachusetts to qualify for the prestigious Jumbo Elliott at mile when he ran a 4:18 at the Brown Invitational, and solidified it with a 4:22.83 victory in the Dartmouth Relays on Jan. 5. So to answer Paul Harber’s question about Andy Downin being the best all-around athlete in Duxbury I’m here to confirm that 10 years later, Andy was selected by the Duxbury community as the best Athlete to come out of Duxbury H.S. in the last 50 years!! For you sports enthusiastic, yes he was voted #1 even over Billy Curly. So much for distance runners not being athletes! With a long time standing track tradition at Duxbury High School Andy still has the school records in the 800m at 1:53 and the 2 mile at 9:18 and is second in the mile with a 4:17. In the spring of his senior year Andy notched a fourth place finish in the prestigious Penn Relays in the 3,000 meters with a time of 8:38. He was selected by Gatorade as the Massachusetts State Track and Field athlete of the year and later was informed that he was also named the New England Gatorade track athletes of the year. Andy won a scholarship to run at Georgetown where he had a stellar career. For all four of his years at Georgetown he won the prestigious Rev. Edmund Bunn Memorial Award given to the outstanding cross country runner of the year and in 1996 he won the James M Gallagher Memorial Award given to the outstanding Track and Field competitor for that year. In 1995 he was a member of the IC4A Distance Medley relay championship team running 7:34.10. Andy really came into his own his senior year. In the 1996 indoor and outdoor season he was a member of the IC4A Distance Medley Championship team, he was the IC4A 1500 m champion, and the IC4A mile champion. In this race Downin overtook Army's Dan Browne in the final lap to win the mile in 4:02.48 Downin said he ran a conservative race, "but .. picked it up in the fifth and sixth laps. This win was particularly fun for Andy because it was his first indoor or outdoor track championship in college and he did it before a lot of friends and family. By the time Andy graduated from Georgetown he was a 7X All American in both XC and Track. Post collegiately, Andy finished 6th at the 2000 Olympic trials with a time of 3:38.36. In 2001 Downin won the 1,500 meters at the USA Outdoor National Championships, winning the race in 3:37.63, Before a crowd of 9,118 at the University of Oregon's Hayward Field, Downin won on a lean in 3:37.63, With 80 meters left, Downin was third and was confident he could make the world team. But then he realized that Gabe Jennings and Seneca Lassiter, who was running second, were beginning to fade, so he pushed on and won by less than a foot. Lassiter finished second in 3:37.66, Paul McMullen third in 3:37.94 and Jennings fourth in 3:38.02 This race was also televised nationally on ESPN. When asked to reminisce on different parts of his career he said of high school: Certainly winning the 1989 state mile championship as a sophomore was a little surprising as his PR going into the year was 4:30 and I knew nothing about the sport and running. And on the opposite end of that was losing the State indoor mile in 1990. That race motivated him and vowed never to take anything for granted. He bounced back to win the State and New England championship title that spring. Of college he said, that the transition between his freshman and sophomore years were huge for his development when he finally looked at himself as a runner and not a soccer player. He also felt that his last year of college he finally put a full consistent season together and capped it with finishing 6th at the Olympic Trials. Post Collegiately he felt that finishing 19th at the World Cross Country Championships and winning the USA 1500m title in 2001 were probably my most memorable accomplishments. 2002: 7th at 4 km at USA Cross Country Championships missed the rest of season due to an Achilles injury. 2001: USA Outdoor 1,500m champion (3:37.63)5th at U.S. 4k XC Champs (11:14.60) 19th at World XC (13:26) ranked #5 in U.S. by T&FN bests of 3:36.70 and 3:56.25. 2000: 6th at U.S. Olympic Trials (3:38.36) placed 2nd behind brother Matt at Fall USA XC Club champs (29:23) ranked 6th in U.S. by T&FN best of 3:38.36. 1999: Did not compete. 1998: Did not compete. 1997: Bests of 3:40.46 and 4:00.89 1996: 6th at USA Olympic Trials (3:44.25)Big East Conference champion5th at NCAA Outdoor Champs best of 3:39.21. 1995: 5th at IC4A Championships best of 3:45.42.
Class: 1991 Inducted: 2013