Getting to know …

Salem’s Anna Buzby

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

SALEM – Salem High School track coach David Hunt likens senior runner Anna Buzby to the Energizer Bunny. She keeps going and going and going. And she certainly has a lot going on.

When she’s not in school or chasing school records on the track, Buzby is a competitive mountain bike rider and just as she is in track, she’s one of the top high school girls in the state at that, too.

In one recent weekend, she ran four events at the Woodbury Relays, helped the Rams set a meet record in one of them and the next day put together a top five finish in a 15-mile mountain bike race. Because of the academic path she’s pursued the 4.0 student will enter the college of her choice already a sophomore.

Whatever activity she undertakes she goes about it with maximum effort, a quality she gained growing up and working on the family farm.

“She’s pretty elite,” Hunt said. “She definitely has natural gifts, but her work ethic is one of the best I’ve ever had, so when you combine both it’s the result you get. Regardless of her ability her effort and willingness to do everything she’s asked to do is like the top two percent.”

Buzby sat down with the Riverview Sports News earlier this week and talked about all things track, mountain biking and life down on the farm.

Coaches, if there is an athlete in your program with an interesting background or back story the community would be interested in “Getting to Know,” forward the details to Riverview Sports News at al.muskewitz@gmail.com.

RIVERVIEW SPORTS NEWS: It’s Buzby with a Z, correct? How many people put the S in there and do you have to correct them a bunch?

ANNA BUZBY: It’s a Z. Whenever they mess it up, it’s not really anything important that needs to be corrected. I don’t know if any interviews or newspapers ever messed it up. They usually get it right for that.

RSN: What is it that attracted you to track and field? I don’t know if you do other sports, but to me you’re the track athlete.

AB: I do play field hockey (left mid) and I do race mountain bikes. I joined a track club in elementary school for a little bit because I had just quit gymnastics and my parents wanted me to do something to not sit around and do nothing, so me and my little brother joined the Rising Stars Track Club (in Penns Grove). That was fun.

I sort of had forgotten I did that once I got to high school. My older brother, Trevor, did track all through high school and he had a really great time. He was a senior my freshman year and I was really nervous to join the track team, but I did it and it was fun to be on a team with my brother. I just kind of picked it up where I left off and just liked it.

RSN: What’s the earliest memory you have of getting a ribbon or medal and how did that influence you wanting to continue?

AB: I remember my first meet. It was a Polar Bear Meet at Clayton. I ran the 800, it was my first race and I didn’t know how far 800 was. No one told me what the distance was, how many laps; what did 800 mean? I just go and line up and I was very nervous and I just booked it. I had no idea how to do this. 

I stopped and turned around and all the girls were still running and I was like, Oh crap,’ so I kept running. I didn’t know how far it was. I ran the whole thing and I won. I definitely did not pace it right.

RSN: And now it’s one of your best events. How neat was that to know nothing and now it’s your best?

AB: It seems kind of silly that I didn’t know what the distance meant now. It was definitely kind of nerve-wracking to win.

I don’t know if I use it as a lesson, but it’s always a funny story to tell people and I make sure all the new runners know what the distance is – one lap is 400, two laps is 800 and four miles is 1600.

RSN: You have placed and won a lot of events in your career. Do you keep all your trophies, ribbons and medals and are there any in particular that holds a special place for you?

AB: I do have a shelf. On the top are the awards I get from the school and it has a bar and I loop all my medals on it. I haven’t counted them recently. It’s kind of crowded. I might need another bar. I have another shelf for my bike medals, too.

RSN: This year’s team is having a bang-up season. I know you’ve been together for a while. Is this the year you all have been waiting to happen and what’s it feel like to see it all come to fruition?

AB: I would say this is the year we’ve been waiting for. My sophomore year we were so close to winning the division and last year we were very close to winning it. The dual meets mean a lot to us. For the girls, we haven’t won the division, so we’ve been trying and trying. That felt good.

We always knew we could do it. Me, personally, and some of my teammates have been really trying their best. Not everyone on the track team is there to, I don’t know, actually compete and be the best they can be (in an event), but there to keep in shape. But I know there’s a good handful of us who have been wanting this win since freshman year.

RSN: Tell me about your relay teams and what makes them click? The sprint medley team set a record at the Woodbury Relays, the 4×200 team won there, your 4×400 team finished fourth in the high school small schools division at the Penn Relays.

AB: Our sprint medley got watches this year at Woodbury and the 4×200 won. I think our sprint medley team works really well together. It’s not all our track team has only good sprinters or only good distance runners; we have a well-rounded team, someone in each event who’s good and when we all come together we can do some great things.

RSN: What is the Penn Relays experience like?

AB: It’s just so fun. Everyone’s so positive. It’s just a good time. It’s kind of surreal because you’ve never been on a track that big until you’re there and in the stadium there are so many eyes watching you. It’s just really fun. It’s just different from any other meet.

I don’t really get overwhelmed at Penn Relays because I know it’s supposed to be fun and it is fun. I really enjoy it.

RSN: Coach Hunt says you’re like the Energizer bunny, always on the go. After the Woodbury Relays you rode in a 16-mile mountain bike race? What’s that part of your athletic life like? I remember Schalick soccer goal scorer Emily Miller rides dirt bikes, too.

AB: She used to be on our mountain bike team (Salem County Reactors of the New Jersey Interscholastic Cycling League) and we were really close friends. (Miller races motocross now).

Woodbury was all day, it was exhausting, then the next morning we got up early and went to Chester. I’ve just been doing that since sixth grade. I race varsity, which is five laps of the course, so it ends up being 15 miles every week. It’s kind of a long day, but I’ve just been doing it. This is my last year to be able to do it, so I just want to get through all five races.

(Buzby has competed in two bike races this season, with a fourth-place at Camp Edge and a third-place at Chester. Last year she finished third at Camp Edge, second at Chester, fifth at Lewis Morris and fourth at Rowan.)

RSN: What do you like that that sport?

AB: I just have always been on a bike for my whole life. My dad loves biking, so we’ve always had bikes, always gone on bikes rides; we’re pretty active people, we bike around the farm. We did do BMX racing for a little bit before sixth grade, then my older brother’s friends got into mountain biking and he got into it, so I just hopped onto it and I liked it. Biking is really fun. I like using my technical skills in the woods.

There is an option of doing it college but I don’t think I’m going to do that. There are some races adults can sign up for, but not outside the league, I could probably do if I wanted to. 

RSN: You live on a working farm in Mannington. They tell me that’s where you developed your work ethic. What it’s like down on the farm, what do you raise there, what’s a typical day like?

AB: It’s A.T. Buzby Farm, after my grandfather Andrew Thomas Buzby. I always forget how many acres the farm is – it’s a good amount (190 acres) – and it’s a produce farm. We do corn, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, watermelon, cantaloupe, like everything.  I work there in the summer with my family. I go to farmer’s markets. I drive the truck to the auction.

Work starts at 6 (a.m.). The first thing we do every morning is pick corn because you want to do it when it’s not too hot out. A bushel of corn is 50 pounds – an ear a pound – you’ve got to pick it, you’ve got to carry it and then place it onto the wagon. It’s pretty labor intensive so you get sweaty so you don’t really want to be out there in the sun, so we do that first thing. Sometimes it takes two hours, sometimes it takes more, depends on how much people are ordering that day.

Then we have workers picking all the other produce. I’ll be in the packing house packing it. We also do a CSA, community supportive agriculture, which people can sign up and customize a box and they come pick it up on a certain day of the week, so we have to pack those. Sometimes I’ll be out in the field fixing irrigation or weeding, all sorts of things. I do a lot of stuff.

RSN: What has that experience done for shaping you as a person and an athlete?

AB: It’s just showing me (the importance of) hard work. Watching my dad work from sunrise to sunset, it’s just given me an example of what hard work looks like and what no days off look like. I carry the work ethic that I’ve picked up from the farm into my sports. I always try my best no matter what.

RSN: How is the farming business doing these days? There are so many stories in the national news about family farms, what the story from someone with boots on the ground?

AB: I’d say it’s good. We have a reputation and people know that we will deliver. Some people say we have the best sweet corn in New Jersey, which I believe. I think we have a good reputation. Everyone loves our tomatoes, too.

RSN: What’s the hardest part of being a farmer?

AB: I feel like since I’ve been doing this my whole life sometimes I feel like I get left out of what my other friends are doing because summer is their time off and summer is my time on. I do get to go camping in the summer for a week with my grandmom and I’ll steal a day to go down to the beach every once in a while, but I feel like there’s no day off. That can be hard sometimes especially when you’re a kid and you just want to play. Our busy season is from now until early October.

RSN: Is farming something you think you’ll stick with after you finish school or will you get out the first chance you get?

AB: Sometimes you need a break from the farm, but you always come back.

RSN: What do you want to be when you grow up?

AB: I don’t know. I want to go to college for nutrition and public health. I don’t really have a certain job in mind, but I’m just interested in nutrition. I’m around food and I like it.

RSN: How have you found the recruiting process? Which schools have shown the most interest in your and which ones are you most interested in?

AB: Liberty, Rowan and West Chester are on my short list. For Liberty, I would be a walk-on if I went there. I’m really indecisive. This is really a hard decision. It was coming down to financials, but now they all cost about the same, which is not helping my decision. One’s a little closer, Liberty’s kind of far. They’re all really good options. I feel like I can’t make a wrong decision, which just makes it even harder to make the decision. I have a hard time making plans.