Stillwater Runner Dedicates Career to Deceased Mother

STILLWATER — Anthony Zazzaro, a four-year track and cross-country star at Stillwater High School, is used to bucking fierce headwinds.

Stillwater is a very small school (graduating class of around 70) with a strong athletic tradition. The cross-country team had only two members this past year. For Anthony, that means running and training alone, close mentoring by his varsity coach Shawn McClements, and plenty of support from his townsfolk for whom he has become a familiar sight running in all kinds of weather, all year long.

“Anthony and I have a very holistic coach-athlete relationship,” said Coach McClements. “For us, it’s always been about advancing the whole person, because cross-country is very mentally and spiritually demanding. Moments racing alone in the backwoods test a runner as he confronts obstacles.”

Zazzaro was the first and only Stillwater cross-country runner ever to advance through the states competition to the Federation Championships, which he did in 2022, 2023, and 2024. After the 2024 season, he won the Class C State Silver Medal.

Zazzaro’s most cherished and poignant moment in racing was competing in the Kelly’s Angels Mother’s Day Race in 2023 at the age of 15. Kelly’s Angels was founded by Mark Mulholland, an area media personality, to honor and memorialize his wife Kelly, who passed from cancer in 2007. Kelly’s Angels was well known to Anthony who had been a beneficiary and contributor to their outreaches, since his mother was suffering from cancer herself.

The race in 2023 was supremely special to Anthony. He ran to honor his mom who had been the major force and fan motivating her son to succeed, taking him to practices and events as a child, and gently prodding him to get up and running on those cold weekend mornings when other teens would nestle in bed for a few more hours. In this May of 2023, Diane Zazzaro was at the end of her heroic two-year battle with cancer.

Anthony set out to win the race for his mom, and so he did. As he recounted, during that effort his heart was breaking, but pumping harder than ever. “Every breath, every step I took, I wanted it for her,” Zazzaro said.

In a wheelchair, Zazzaro’s mom witnessed her son’s Mother’s Day tribute to her. It was to be one of her final experiences. Three days later, she passed away.

Devastated but unbroken by his loss, Zazzaro dedicated his racing career to Diane.

In this difficult situation, running against the wind, Anthony is blessed and encouraged by the memory of all the “Kellys” who left their families much too early. Sunrise or sunset, the cold of dusk and the heat of mid-day are part of the continuing cycle of training, competing and achieving. Just recently, he handily won the Springfield, Massachusetts Invitational to begin his indoor track season.

But Anthony doesn’t run alone. He has many angels on his shoulders to propel him ever onward.

Silvio Laccetti, Ph.D is a retired history professor, national columnist, and director of The Silvio Laccetti Foundation.