Fairfield’s Bruno couldn’t be prouder of Young, Torres
Swim coach puts in overnight hours to watch duo
For the past week, Fairfield University swim coach Anthony Bruno would wake up at around 5 a.m., sometimes before the crack of dawn, and immediately open his phone.
Careful not to let the light of the screen or any sound wake his eightmonth pregnant wife, he’d bring up the online stream of the 2020 Paralympic swim events for live results.
He’d hold in his cheer and celebrate quietly as he watched his former top swimmer Colleen Young win two Paralympic medals and his current swimmer Matthew Torres win his first in his Summer Games debut.
“[I’m] just incredibly happy for them,” Bruno said this week. “Definitely, really proud of them.”
In her third Paralympics, Young, a top swimmer with the Stags from 2016-2020, won two medals, including her second bronze in the 100m Breaststroke. Torres, going into his junior year at Fairfield this fall, completed his Paralympic debut by winning the bronze in the 400-meter S8 Freestyle.
The two solidified their spot as Fairfield’s only Paralympic medalists, with Young becoming the first Stag to do so in 2016.
And while winning medals at the world stage is the ultimate goal, Bruno said he couldn’t be prouder of the two representing Fairfield and showing how paraswimmers can thrive coming from Division-I collegiate programs just like anybody else.
“It really does inspire people,” Bruno said. “It really does pull the team together and I think whether you’re an alumni or a current team member, I think they’re just proud that we’re doing that type of stuff here. … These guys [Young and Torres] have earned everything they’ve gotten.”
When Bruno arrived in Fairfield during the spring of 2017, one of the first athletes he met was Young.
Young, who had been to two Paralympics [2012 and 2016], invited Bruno to
Colorado to watch her compete for a spot on Team USA’s paraswim team ahead of the World Championships. She told him about her goals, both collegiately and in paraswim, and her passion for competing in both divisions.
Learning about the world of paraswim and the process of making a Paralympic team inspired Bruno. He had been introduced to paraswim while competing collegiately for Springfield College alongside thenteammate, and later threetime Paralympic gold medalist, Justin Zook. But now as a coach, he wanted to do what he could to help paraswimmers like Young reach their goals.
“It’s something that stuck with me,” he said. “My first three years with Colleen gave me a much better foundation of paraswimming. …. That really opened up the door for me in terms of, ‘Hey, I’d like to get involved more with this.’ I’m certainly open to having more paraswimmers on the team. And I would say she paved the way here for making this a place that paraswimmers are interested in.”
Young’s passion for competing across both paraswim and within the MAAC Conference pushed her to become one of Fairfield’s all-time top swimmers. As a sophomore in 2017, she was the team’s leading scorer and helped the program win its first MAAC title. She set eight school records and was a seventime MAAC champion.
During Young’s senior year, Torres, from Ansonia, joined the squad. At first, Torres, who graduated from Fairfield Prep in 2019, struggled to match the collegiate level of competition. Bruno said during the first few months that season, he swam at a level one compared to others on the team.
But after adjusting to the high-intensity training of the program, he exceeded and found his spot with some of the team’s fastest swimmers. He became analytical about his splits and always asked Bruno why and how specific drills helped him. Bruno said by the end of Torres’ freshman year in 2020, he had risen to become a level-four swimmer.
“I love that he comes in every day ready to work, ready to get better,” Bruno said. “This is a really, really hard sport, and he shows up with a positive attitude, wanting to get better every time he touches the water. … He was kinda anxious to see how he would start, and he hit a home run at his end-of-year meet. He was right at all the milestones that we could have hoped to have achieved that year.”
Torres told Bruno about his Paralympic goals during his recruitment. Once he became a Stag, Bruno allowed him to miss team meets to travel and compete at top paraswim meets and attend any necessary Team USA responsibilities. Going into his sophomore year, both agreed Torres would spend the season in Colorado training with national team members in preparation for the Paralympics instead of competing collegiately.
When Bruno took over as the Stags’ coach four years ago, he had no idea he’d be watching two of his athletes compete in the Summer Games. Sure, he knew Young had Paralympic experience, but to see Torres dedicate his life to improve his training and make Team USA was beyond exciting.
And the excitement only grew as both Young and Torres earned Paralympic medals during their time in Tokyo at the 2020 Paralympics.
On Monday, Young won her second-career Paralympic medal, winning the silver in the 200m SM13 Individual Medley with a time of two minutes, 26.80 seconds. Two days later, she finished her time in Tokyo by winning bronze in the 100m SB13 breaststroke in 1:15.69.
“She’s done so many good things for our program and just her growth, her maturity, I’m just really happy for her. I’m really proud of her. I know how much it meant to her to get the silver and bronze,” Bruno said. “I’m just super proud of her for this one because she’s definitely someone that has battled to do well at these Games and did a phenomenal job.”
In his third and final event in Tokyo, Torres won bronze in the 400m S8 freestyle in 4:28.47 on Tuesday.
“With Matthew, it’s pretty cool because I know it’s hard to get to the Games, but you want to believe he’s getting back,” Bruno said. “This is kinda like the beginning. It is really cool to have seen Colleen, who had been a national-teamer, and her growth and going to her third Games and the dynamic where this is Matthew’s first Games. … I think he’s going to come back better than ever for the next one.”
Bruno said while the two were competing in Tokyo the team was getting some of its best engagement it’s ever had on social media, including other paraswimmers expressing interest in joining the team.
“I think people really are inspired and they’re proud of it,” Bruno said. “The goal is always ‘we’re going to do everything to support your para-goals.’ We’ll do everything we can to support that. … I think it’s also the culture. I think it really helped those guys because it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re a division 1 swimmer. The expectation for you is the same for everybody else,’ and I think they want that and that’s why they are as successful as they are.”
With Torres returning to the Stags program, Bruno is excited to see how he continues to improve. But more than that, he’s excited to continue watching how paraswim grows within the Fairfield and collegiate swimming communities.
“We come here, we work hard and we get better. We try to build good people and Matthew and Colleen are some of the best people,” he said.