In Focus: Burns' Unique Path To UW Track
May 07, 2015 | General, Track & Field
By Mason Kelley
GoHuskies.com
When Casey Burns made the transition from high school to college, he admits he was “hard-headed.”
With a mother, Carolyn, who was a track standout at Lincoln High School and Pacific Lutheran University and a father, Ken, who whose career led him into Army, Burns decided during his senior year at Kennedy Catholic in Burien he would “never do either one of those things.”
Sometimes plans change.
“I guess genetics won this fight, because I'm doing both of those things,” said Burns, who in addition to being a triple jumper at Washington is also in the university's ROTC program.
Burns first arrived on Washington's campus a few years ago. He was accepted to the school as a student with no intention of competing collegiately.
“I just always knew I was going to be here,” he said. “Every Saturday I was watching the Dawgs on TV.”
But, during that initial foray into college life, he struggled in the classroom. At the end of his first year in school, he spent the summer trying to figure out what was next.
“I had no idea what I was going to do,” he said.
He had three months to come up with a plan.
“I needed a place to live,” he said. “I needed new clothes. I needed money.”
He found what he was looking for in the Army Reserves.
It was the military that pointed him in the right direction, putting him on a path that led him back to track.
“The Army had those three things for me,” he said. “They squared me away and got my head back on my shoulders.”
So, after a year in school, he headed for basic training at Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla.
He said the experience was difficult, “it was like 18 degrees every day” and there were moments when he wondered “if I still had hands,” but he got through it and was sent to San Antonio for more training.
“I guess they heard me complaining about how cold it was, so they sent me to San Antonio to do some lab training over the summer,” he said with a laugh.
Burns then went east to work at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as a lab technician.
“I take bodily fluids and tell you what's wrong with you,” he said. “A lot of people see that I'm medical and Army and say, 'Oh, I'll come to you if I get hurt.' I'm like, 'You come to me after you get hurt and then you get infected.'”
After about a year and a half, he was back in Seattle and enrolled in classes. This time around, though, his mother was able to convince him to try track in addition to school and ROTC.
He knew Washington volunteer jumps coach Julian Bardwell, who coached the triple jumper over the summer back when Burns was in high school, so he asked if there was an open spot on the team.
“If you've still got it, you're welcome to come out,” Bardwell told Burns.
So, he tried out, made the team and is now a valuable member of the program, winning the triple jump in the program's dual meet against Washington State last week with a jump of 48 feet, 11 inches.
Now that he has found success with Washington, his next goal is trying to catch Stanford's Darian Brooks – they were teammates at Kennedy Catholic – who won the Pac-12 title in the triple jump last season.
“We've always been very competitive with each other,” Burns said. “He's always beaten me, so he's like my standard of what's good. So right now if you ask me what's good, if I'm not beating him, it's never good.”
Burns compared his rivalry with Brooks to Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby character in “Talladega Nights.” As far as Burns is concerned, “If you're not first, you're last.”
So, as he balances school, ROTC and track – he is also doing a little coaching – Burns works to catch the best, while fulfilling all of his obligations.
There are days he could probably use track to get out of early morning ROTC workouts, but Burns has made commitments he intends to honor.
“I'd rather do it the right way,” said Burns, who will rejoin his unit in the Army Reserves after he graduates. “I don't want to be the guy who is going to shirk his responsibilities and collect a check for something I didn't do.”
He has come a long way from the student who was struggling with his grades as a freshman, the teenager determined to build a life that didn't involve track or the military.
But it was the military that pointed him in the right direction, putting him on a path that led him back to track.
“You can't escape what you're meant to do,” he said. “That may sound kind of weird, but here I am.”
