All-USA Girls Track and Field Coach Brian Westfield (Photo: Peter Draugalis Photography)
Bryan Westfield of Pioneer (Ann Arbor, Mich.) has been named the 2014-15 American Family Insurance ALL-USA Girls Track and Field Coach of the Year.
The ALL-USA teams are coordinated by Fred Baer, the founder of Track and Field Writers of America. Boys selections are made by Jack Shepard, the high school editor of Track and Field News.
RELATED: ALL-USA Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year: Candace Hill
RELATED: ALL-USA Girls Track and Field First Team
RELATED: ALL-USA Girls Track and Field Second Team
COACH PROFILE:
Name: Bryan Westfield
School: Pioneer (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
Highlights: Bryan Westfield started the Pioneer (Ann Arbor, Mich.) girls cross country and track teams in 1978-79.
After completing his 37th elite season as coach this spring, he died of esophageal cancer at age 72 on July 5.
His girls track teams have won 16 Michigan state team championships and finished second six times. He also won three state cross country team titles. He has had 59 All-American selections.
On the day he died, a current year (senior) Pioneer athlete, Nicole Wilson, had the best wind-legal long jump by a Michigan high school athlete this season at the USATF National Youth Championships in Lisle, Ill. Pioneer relay teams this year won regional titles in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 meters and finished second in the state in the 4 x 400.
Westfield was inducted into the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006. He was National Federation of State High School Associations coach of the year in 2002.
Perhaps his best athlete was Candice Davis, who won the silver medal in the 60 meter hurdles at the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships.
Westfield competed in football and track at Cornell University (where he received his teaching credential in 1964). He earned a spot on the developmental squad in the NFL for the New York Giants and was a U.S. Olympic Trials participant in the hurdles.
He remained active until the end — and was still running around the halls at Pioneer in mid-June, according to his daughter Crystal Westfield — the girls basketball coach at Pioneer.