Boys’ Track & Field

Blair Academy as an institution strives to educate the whole person. We seek to provide a balance between challenging academics and rich extracurricular experiences. The vast majority of our coaches are also teachers, and our students work hard to be successful in the classroom, on the athletic field and within the community.

Blair's track teams operate within this context with a spring schedule of 10 or more meets ranging from dual meets to large relay meets. We compete in all typical high school running and field events, including pole vault and javelin.

Blair offers Cross Country in the fall and Track & Field in the winter and spring, making it possible for a student to run competitively all year long. 

Our interscholastic Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL) is a very competitive one that includes Lawrenceville, Pennington, Peddie, Hill, Mercersburg and Hun. These schools, along with numerous other New Jersey private schools, provide the bulk of our competition. We have taken a mile relay team to the Penn Relays every year for nearly a decade and have also competed in the Hill Relays, the Randolph Relays and the East Coast Relays, among others.

The Boys' and Girls’ teams have produced their share of successes, including a qualifier for Nationals in the Girls’ 1,500 in 2004 and a Boys’ Distance Medley Relay team which qualified for the Penn Relays in 2003. The Boys’ team won the state prep championship in 2002 and the Girls’ team has made steady improvement in their competitive position over the years, being a top finisher in the MAPL and State Championships. Most recently, we've sent athletes to the National Championships in the Sprint Medley Relay, 4 x 400, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, and the long jump. In 2016, Blair was home to the number-one long jumper in the country. Our 2024 Boys’ Sprint Medley Relay team qualified once again for the New Balance Outdoor National meet to be held in Eugene, Oregon. 

Track is a wonderful way to develop speed, strength and self discipline; we invite students to become part of the Blair track family. We look forward to meeting prospective runners and encourage those interested in the team to call or email the coaching staff or contact us when you visit Blair.

Meet Coach Thornton

In 2022, Eddy Thornton became a member of Blair’s history department and began to coach the School’s cross country and track teams. Since 2009, Eddy has taught various levels of history classes at Union Catholic Regional High School in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Over the course of his tenure there, he served as summer school principal and worked with the athletics and admission offices on marketing and recruiting. He began his teaching career at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey, after earning his BA in historic preservation from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 2008. Eddy went on to continue his studies in educational leadership, management and policy at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, from which he earned an MA in 2012. Eddy is joined on campus by his wife, Ashley, and their son, Felix.

Contact Coach Thornton at thorne@blair.edu for any questions.

Meet Coach Williams

Assistant coach Mark Williams has been on the track and field coaching staff since 2020. An active runner on the Master's track and field circuit, Williams has earned several honors that include multiple state and national championships in the 800m, 1500m, and the mile for both indoor and outdoor track. He is also a member of the 4x800 indoor relay team who has the M40-44 world record with a time of 7:49.90, and is personally ranked as one of the top middle distance runners in the United States and in the world in his age group. 

Meet Coach Thatcher

Chris Thatcher joined Blair’s faculty in 2016 as a chemistry and physics teacher and assistant wrestling coach. During a 23-year career in engineering, Chris worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing, validation consulting, and medical device research and development. He earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering at Princeton University (1993), where he was a four-year Division I wrestler and cross country runner and two-year captain of the wrestling team. Chris has served as Blair’s assistant wrestling coach since 2012, and, in addition to continuing in this role, he is the assistant coach of varsity softball. He serves on the staff of the Center for Innovation and Collaboration and the Lakeside dormitory. He and his wife, Kristi, and their children, Tyler, Tanner, Chelsea, and Adison, live in Blairstown. Chris enjoys trail running, hiking and do-it-yourself projects and has coached more than 30 youth recreational sports teams.

Meet Coach Ince

Stirling Ince will serve as a Spanish teacher in Blair’s language department, bringing to the role 30-plus years of experience teaching, coaching, advising and dorm parenting, most recently at Cushing Academy in Massachusetts. Beyond his teaching responsibilities and serving as an advisor and dorm head there, he was head coach of boys’ and girls’ varsity cross country and track and field. Students and faculty honored his many contributions by electing him Teacher of the Year in 2024. In addition to leading Cushing’s summer session as dean of faculty and teaching in the summer program at TASIS England and in Jiangsu Province, China, Stirling has worked in similar roles at Solebury School in Pennsylvania, Prep for Prep in New York City and a number of schools in Ecuador. During college at Wesleyan University, he ran cross country and indoor and outdoor track; his accomplishments include competing in two national championships, being named an All-American in indoor track, holding the university’s outdoor track record in the 800 meter for 34 years, and continuing to hold the indoor record at the same distance. Stirling completed his undergraduate work in 1992 and graduated from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1998 with an MsEd in Second Language Education. He also studied at Dulwich College in London and St. Mary’s College in Trinidad and Tobago (the island nation where he grew up).

Meet Coach Donlon

Science teacher Dana Donlon joined Blair in the fall of 2022. Since 2015, Dana worked as a science teacher at West Morris Central High School in Chester, New Jersey. Prior to that, she taught at Voorhees High School in Glen Gardner, New Jersey, as well as at Northern Valley Regional High School in Demarest, New Jersey, where she also served as a field hockey, track-and-field and swimming coach. After completing her undergraduate work at The College of New Jersey, where she majored in biology and minored in mathematics and chemistry, Dana went on to earn her master of science education from Montana State University in 2016. Early in her career, she worked as an educational consultant who mentored middle-and-high school teachers at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. Dana lives with her husband, Kevin, and children Brendan, Ryan, Kellen and Ciara in Knowlton, New Jersey.

Meet Coach Fredrick

Heather Fredrick brings to Blair admission experience on the other side of the desk at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where she worked since 2021, most recently as assistant director of admission. A 2020 graduate of Colgate University, Heather earned her BA in economics and international relations and served as the senior intern to the vice president of admission. As an undergraduate, she also traveled extensively, visiting 20 countries and sharing her passion for global travel as a peer mentor in Colgate’s study abroad office. Over the course of her career, Heather has championed access and equity in the college process, provided individualized counseling and financial aid coaching and fostered partnerships across the desk with high school counselors.

View directions to athletic events. To read recaps about past events, go to the "Team News" tab above.

View more recent photos on Blair's Photoshelter or past seasons (2004-2018) on Blair's Flickr.