'My family has always been there for me': Wachusett freshman Naomi Witt follows fine sibling track tradition
Imagine all the nine children of Davis and Susan Witt gathered at the start line on the Wachusett Regional track. Arranged from eldest to youngest as a relay team, the anchor would be 14-year-old Naomi, a standout freshman on the Mountaineers.
“Naomi is the final Witt coming through our program,” said Wachusett girls’ track coach Mike O’Malley, watching her smooth strides in practice last week. “The Witts have been a strong presence on our teams for many years now, and each has left a mark in some way.”
Naomi’s sisters Ashylnn, 19, now at Quinnipiac, Delaney, 20, Maddie, 22 and Lindsay, 26, were outstanding track athletes for Wachusett, all coached by O’Malley.
Asked for a full list of her siblings and their ages, Witt, a talented long-distance and sprint runner on the Mountaineers spring track team, quickly added her sister Kaitlyn, the oldest at 31, her brother Alex, 30, Julia, 27, who raced at Notre Dame Academy and Mitchell, 25, a former top St. John’s runner.
“It’s just me at home now with my parents. All my siblings are living in other states,” said the 5-foot-3 Naomi, who said that she cherishes all the family support and encouragement she has received even before she singled out running as her main sport.
“When Naomi was in the fourth and fifth grade, her sisters would tell me that she wasn’t really into running,” O’Malley recalled. “Well, that changed when she began to run at Notre Dame in the seventh and eighth grades. Sure enough, she became a solid runner, and now she’s with us, and she’s all in.”
Last fall, in her first cross-country season with the Mountaineers, Witt ran a personal-best time of 18 minutes, 49 seconds in a 3.1-mile race at Devens.
“I was introduced to running at a young age, but I was never forced into it,” she said. “My family has always been there for me, sending me text messages before races. And I’ll always be there for them.”
During the indoor season, Witt, who lives in Princeton, was part of a school record-setting 4x400-meter team that included senior Nyah Santana, junior Rahma Giwa and sophomore Anna Namiotka.
“It’s really fun running with Naomi. She’s very team-oriented. It’s not all about herself. And she’s very fast and hard-working," said Namiotka, whose older sister, Michaella, and Ashlynn Witt ran together on a previous Wachusett 4x400 team.
When not building up mile after mile during cross-country and track seasons, Witt, who has been clocked at 58.3 seconds in the 400, enjoys playing piano, drawing and spending time with her friends and taking walks and jogs with the family’s two dogs, Maverick and Goose.
“I have a goal of reaching the college level in running,” Witt said. “And maybe the professional level, but that’s like a big reach. Oh, and I would definitely want to run the Boston Marathon one day.”
“Naomi is not afraid to go after a race,” O’Malley said. “We as coaches learned that in the fall when we made a plan for a cross-country race that was designed to include kind of a moderate start for her. Well, about 200 meters in, she just took off and passed some of the leaders. I think she learned that day that she could be very good.”
—Contact Jay Gearan at sports@telegram.com.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Wachusett's Naomi Witt follows fine family track tradition
