Rudy Chapa

Rodolfo ("Rudy") Chapa (born November 7, 1957 in Hammond, Indiana) is a Mexican-American businessman who had a successful school career as a runner. He is the son of Mexican immigrants. His father Rodolfo Sr. came to the U.S. as a mechanic through the Bracero program. [ [http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=236938 Oregon Hall of Fame] ]

Background

High School Career

While in high school, Rudy Chapa won the Cross-country state championship twice in a row. The first time was in 1974, tying for 1st place in a time of 11:59.8 with fellow schoolmate Carey Pinkowski. The second came in 1975 with a time of 11:46.3. It was during his high school years that he formed part of a trio of runners from his school that all broke 9:00 minutes in the two mile run, which he, Carey Pinkowski, and Tim Keough did in 1975. No other American high school before or since then has matched that feat. In 1976, Chapa first gained fame as one of the U.S.A.'s great high school distance runners, setting the still-standing national high school 10,000 meter record, in 28:32¹. That same year he also won the Indiana state mile in 4:04.20, a time that as of 2008 is still the state record.

College

After high school graduation he went out west to run for William Dellinger's famous University of Oregon track and field team at Hayward Field. He went on to earn All American status six times in cross country and track and was a member of Oregon's 1977 national champion cross country team. In 1978 he won the NCAA championship in 5,000 meters while running in front of his home crowd in Oregon. The next year he broke the American Record (AR) in the 3,000 meters at Hayward Field as well, running a time of 7:37.7 to break Steve Prefontaine's AR by five seconds. While at Oregon he became friends with future (now former) marathon world record holder, Alberto Salazar, another Hispanic American distance runner.

After graduating from Oregon, Chapa attended Indiana Law School. While he won some local road races (such as the Sports Med 10K in 29:21 and the Double Eagle 10-Miler in 48:08 in October 1983) Chapa's only performance of note after leaving Oregon came in the 1983 New York City Marathon when he ran a time of 2:11:13 (for 7th place), the second fastest American marathon debut at the time (behind Salazar's 2:09:41 at New York in 1980). In 1999 he was inducted into the University of Oregon athletics Hall of Fame² and was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.

After his athletic career, Chapa first served as the global director of sports marketing at Nike, Inc. He then left NIKE in 1999 in order to pursue his own entrepreneurial vision, which manifests itself today as SPARQ (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness), a sports equipment and media company.

Chapa is married to Patricia Eiting and has five children, Joaquin, Annaliese, Alma, Alberto and Juan. Joaquin and Annaliese are distance runners at the University of Oregon and University of Washington, respectively, and both are among the top young runners in the nation.

Background

* [http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/archive/records/outdoor/men/hs_outdoor_records.html National High School Track Records]
* [http://www.hoosierauthority.com/Sports/articles.php?spid=159&spmid=180&id=746 Indiana Sports] Chapa also has four sisters and a brother.

References