Mark Chapus: A Convert to Track

"I don't like to run, it makes me feel horrible" Marc Chapus, the co-captain of both the men's indoor and outdoor track team, says. "I punish my body to make it perform, and it lets me know it. I practice hard and push my body to the brink, after a meet in which I run in two or more single events I'm exhausted and run a 103 degree fever the next day, plus I ache all over."

These are surprising words for a runner, especially when he holds almost half a dozen University stadium records. Chapus, however, doesn't really consider himself a runner, above all else. In fact, he never even considered running track until after the fall of his freshman year.

"I came to Harvard to play football and study--its the best school in the country, and if Yale were better I'd be there," the 6 foot 2 inch Winthrop House senior says. Chapus ended up running track at Harvard by sheer accident. On the freshman football squad he played various positions and considered himself the proverbial jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.

After football season the coaches saw he had speed so they suggested that he try track to stay in condition for football.

Having never run in a track meet. Chapus was a little apprehensive about going out for the sport. "I'll never forget my first freshman meet back in 1978. It was a cold day in a meet against Northeastern. I was supposed to run in the JV race, but someone got hurt so I was put in the varsity race. I ran out of absolute fear of the cold and the coach--I got first in the race and a stadium record that still stands to this day (21.6 in the 200 meter dash)." Chapus never played football again.

Marc relates that the coaching made him stay with the sport. "McCurdy has made quite an impression on me--as I'm sure he has on all those who ran for him, especially as a freshman. Although he has lost a little spark he has more than made up for it with the spirit he produces and the spunk he has in his manner--Don't ever bet him beers in a race."

Chapus calls McCurdy a deceptively smart man and an exceptional athlete, "I can honestly say that he is very old."

"I'll never forget McCurdy's seemingly easy freshman workouts--only three quarter mile sprints all out. It seems so simple with 12 minute intervals between each sprint. So as a freshman I ran them all full speed--boy did I hurt-that's something I'd never do again today. There are definitely things you learn by the time you're a senior."

His biggest surprise as a runner came at last year's Greater Boston Championships at Boston College. Boston University was expected to win the 400 meter relay race with Harvard seeded somewhere back in the pack. "We beat them by a couple of feet, I don't know why, but we got first (and a University and GBC record along with Joe Salvo, Kim Stephens, and Peter Nsiah). It was great, that race set the tone for the meet. It said, 'Hey, Harvard is here to run and win.' We won the GBC's that day--I'll never forget it."

Other moments in his career weren't so bright. "I remember in the Heps last year in the final heat of the 200 meter my shoulder dislocated at the start. My arm just rolled out of the socket and hung there--what an ugly sight. About halfway in the race it popped back in. I came in fifth, but the looks on the spectators faces--consternation--I'll never forget."

Only one race was more unique in England two years ago. For Chapus--the Oxford-Cambridge-Harvard meet. A teamate, Lance Miller, was walking around with a mohawk haircut. "What a sight--the Scottish people at the meet nearly swallowed their bagpipes when they saw that," he recalls

Chapus calls the Harvard track experience paradoxical. "Every year there is a rumor that McCurdy will retire. Every year it doesn't happen. He'll never retire--at least not for those of us who ran for him. It's like saying that Harvard's endowment is going broke."

"One would think that I would get the most satisfaction from the track records I've gained here, but I really don't. The most rewarding thing I've done at Harvard has been to participate in the NCAA Big Brother program," Chapus said. A big brother to three kids from the Kings School and Agassiz School in Cambridge, Chapus sees his friends once a week. "I take them to dinner at Winthrop House, or a movie or a Bruins game. What actors little kids are. You give them one sip of beer and they pretend that they are drunk--but it really makes their day."

Chapus started the Big Brother program at Harvard a couple of years ago and works to sign up athletes. He screens them and then matches them with local kids who need the program. "Many people come to Harvard to do activities that look great on a resume but this kind of effort doesn't want that kind of individual--this program is the single best thing I've done here and it's worth more to me than any of the records I hold. The records, they'll be broken, they don't last; the smiles on my kids faces after a hockey game--they'll last. I'll remember and the kids will remember. What more could I want."