35|35 Anniversary Website
This is the 20th installment of a series of 35 moments, milestones, and facts that will be featured throughout the 2013-14 academic year to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Over the course of his life, which began in the crime-ridden inner city of Chicago’s Southside, Duane Chappell has always seemed to find a way to trust. It hasn’t been easy. Whether it was trouble at home, uncertainty when choosing a college, or opting for a different career path professionally, Chappell has been one to rely on that trust to push him through the pain, the suffering, and the unknown.
So perhaps it is fitting that Chappell excelled in track and field at Lewis University in an event that calls for a tremendous amount of trust… and a smidge more of crazy.
The pole vault. Where one races down a runway, plants a large flexible pole in a box, inverts himself nearly 18 feet in the air, clears a bar, and free falls back to Earth.
What
on Earth are these people thinking?
For Chappell, he didn’t think much about it when he first saw the event on television at the age of 7 other than it looked “cool and crazy.” Twenty-five years later, the only thing crazy to Chappell is how he became a six-time NCAA Division II Champion in the event and arguably the most-decorated track and field athlete in the 35-year history of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Chappell’s past has been a story of starts and restarts.
He was born and raised in Chicago as the youngest of six kids to father Duane Farmer and mother Gurtie Chappell. There were four sisters and an older brother that grew up with Chappell in a Southside neighborhood plagued by daily, nightly… heck, even hourly crime.
His family was one of faith, attending church every Sunday and listening to the youngest Chappell sing in the choir.
They also watched television together, like when the young Chappell sat with his father in the family room and watched track and field on the small screen. It was the first time he had ever seen pole vaulting.
“It instantly struck me as something that looked wild, crazy and simply amazing to me,” Chappell said. “If I had the chance to pick up a pole then, I think I would have.”
Like all dads seem to do, Chappell received some fatherly advice to get involved with pole vaulting if he ever had the chance.
Four years later, however, issues within the family prompted a significant change, or better yet, a significant restart to Chappell’s life.
“My parents did the best they could with raising all of us but times got tough and the crime in our neighborhood didn’t help matters,” Chappell said. “There is not much to do when you are bored in the inner city. Despite being a straight-A student, I found trouble or trouble seemed to find me.”
So after his older sister Tomeka got married at the age of 18, she and her husband James took legal custody of the 11-year-old Chappell and his older brother Daron, and moved them to Calumet City in Chicago’s south suburbs.
“It was then that I pretty much was able to start my life over with the help of my sister and brother-in-law, who both sacrificed their young marriage to raise us.”
Chappell would soon grow into a 14-year-old freshman at Thornwood High School in nearby South Holland, where he looked to get involved in sports. When he was turned down by both the basketball and football teams, he remembered his father’s advice and turned to track and field and pole vaulting.
“We were instructed to head to an event that we wanted to try, and after seeing a couple of upperclassmen pole vaulting, that was the first place I went,” Chappell said.
It was there at the practice pit that he met his first pole vault coach in the late Wayne Devalk. He introduced the intrigued Chappell to the event and taught him how to mold his strength, speed, and athletic ability into a defined technique that eventually vaulted him to college.
Lewis University wasn’t at the top of the list for Chappell, in fact, it was the furthest thing from his mind. He knew of the school from growing up in the Chicagoland area, but did not want to get too wrapped up in visiting several colleges because he was conducting his search alone. He enrolled in another school to pursue track and field, and appeared to be ready for his next step. He had his class schedule, his student ID, and even a roommate. But there was a problem. Chappell did not feel comfortable in his new environment. He felt the track and field coach was not that interested in him, which prevented Chappell from trusting his first choice.
Three days prior to beginning the fall semester of his freshman year, Chappell was out.
“I took a chance and drove up to Lewis to check it out,” Chappell recalls. “I wasn’t the greatest athlete coming out of high school at the time, but the coaching staff at Lewis made me feel welcomed. The admissions people helped me get things in order despite the late notice. I just felt (Lewis) was going to be my home away from home and that things were going to work out for me.”
Did they ever.
After learning his technique under the watchful eye of Devalk, Chappell would train with two coaches while at Lewis. In his first three years, Chappell adapted to the teachings of Don Slota, but then changed mentors again when pole vault coach Dana Schwarting was brought in for Chappell’s senior campaign.
Schwarting wasn’t new to the Flyers, however, as he had been on the staff as the jumps coach. Often Schwarting would hang out with the pole vaulters, guiding his one decathlete through workouts. It was there that he began to befriend Chappell, but it wasn’t the first time he had seen Chappell in action. Prior to arriving at Lewis as an assistant, Schwarting spent two seasons as head coach of Division II Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. He recalls watching Chappell vault, and once an opportunity came along to join the Lewis staff, he knew he was going to be around someone special.
Following his first year on staff, Schwarting told head coach Bob Schultz that if Lewis was going to bring the pole vault coach position back for another year, he was confident he could perform the duties.
For Chappell, that meant establishing a trust with another new coach, because in pole vaulting, it’s a little crazy mixed in with a lot of technique and planning.
“I have had three pole vault coaches in my career and all were equally important and instrumental in the success that I have had,” said Chappell. “There is always the ‘no fear’ or the ‘screw it, run fast, and hold on tight’ mentality you need, but ultimately you have to have trust in yourself, the pole, and most importantly, your coach.”
It is that trust that earned Chappell six national championships in his collegiate career, which also included six league titles in the pole vault as well.
“At the time we were working together, (his success) didn’t seem like a huge deal,” said Schwarting, who was elevated to head coach of the Flyers’ track and field programs in 2005. “We had other great athletes on the team, and the year after Duane graduated, we had another athlete, Mark Zilch, win a national title in the pole vault. But now a few years later, having not as much success nationally, you realize how special he was as an athlete.”
Chappell’s first national pole vault title came at the 2001 NCAA indoor meet. It was a feeling that he says he will never forget. Not so much for being celebrated as the best pole vaulter in the country, but more so for realizing in that moment how far he had come.
“I could not fathom how an inner city Chicago kid whose thoughts of greatness was to be like Michael Jordan, found himself being crowned NCAA Champion,” Chappell said. “It gave me a feeling, a life lesson in immortality that I carry with me today. Anything can be done if you work hard and sacrifice yourself to do what needs to be done to be the best.”
Chappell continued that dedication and would go on to sweep both the indoor and outdoor national titles in 2002 and 2004, before finishing off his career with the 2005 outdoor crown.
Schwarting believes Chappell could have gone a perfect 8-for-8 at the NCAA Championships had it not been for untimely injuries.
“One year I tore my hamstring at the opening height of the competition,” Chappell recalls, “while the other year I took a bad jump on the practice day, missed the mat, and suffered a concussion.”
Perhaps the most adversity he faced while competing was at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Championships – his final competition as a student-athlete. Chappell had five national titles under his belt, but the 100-degree California heat did not help in his first few jumps. In fact, he was in eighth place when he stepped on to the runway for his final attempt. If that wasn’t enough pressure, the stadium’s public address announcer reminded the entire crowd – and Chappell – the situation he currently faced.
As Chappell noted, that’s when the trust kicked in. The trust in his technique. The trust in his coach’s instructions. The trust in himself. The trust in a Higher Power to give him the power to go higher.
“I knew God was there to not just see me over the bar, but to make sure I did my best,” Chappell recalled. “Needless to say, I gave the crowd a roaring thrill and myself my final national title.”
It was a defining moment for Chappell.
Often times one can be slow to reach his goal at the risk of falling fast. For Chappell, much like the fluid motion of the pole vault, the free fall is actually the reward when you are staring back at the bar that remains at the height you just cleared.
Chappell later graduated from Lewis with a degree in radio/television broadcasting, but opted for a new path. It was yet another restart.
But this journey rekindled a childhood dream. While Chappell admittedly fell on hard times and was involved in bad decisions as an inner city youth, he always wanted to be a police officer.
So he became one. For nearly eight years now, Chappell has served as a state trooper with the Illinois State Police, residing in the northwest suburb of Wheeling.
He became two other things along the way as well. A husband to wife Tracy, and a father to 6-year-old daughter Kailyn and 4-year-old son Cameron.
This spring at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Chappell will become something else.
A Hall of Famer.
The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (
USTFCCCA) will induct Chappell into the Division II Hall of Fame at the banquet before the 2014 national meet in Allendale, Mich.
For Schwarting, it will be a proud moment to see his third former athlete inducted into the Hall of Fame. For Chappell, it will mark a 25-year flashback to the day he sat watching television with his father and first became interested in the pole vault.
“Being inducted into the Division II Hall of Fame is an honor I have yet to put into perspective,” Chappell said. “It brings a sense of pride in my life and thankfulness to every coach that ever believed in me or told me I could do it.”
And now he gets to share this moment with his two children, the oldest of which is nearly the same age Chappell was when he spent that memorable moment with his father.
“They may not understand the magnitude of what the Hall of Fame means right now, but the good thing about it is that it isn’t going anywhere,” Chappell said.
Nor are his fond memories of his time at Lewis and the GLVC. He remains in close contact with Schwarting and the Flyers and hopes to take in some of the 2014 GLVC Outdoor Championships, which will be hosted by Lewis on May 2-3.
“The GLVC, through all its efforts with staff and competing schools, does a great job in providing an atmosphere where a student can be educated not just in the classroom, but in the sports field as well. Ten years later, I can look back on my time at Lewis and feel like I am better for having the opportunity to be a part of it all.”
The pole vault has been somewhat synonymous with Chappell’s life. He has taken great strides, grounded himself before reaching new heights, and experienced moments of clarity where he can look back and see all that he has achieved.
It has not been easy.
When his father encouraged in to become involved in sports, his oldest sister soon encouraged him to restart his troubled life with her as his guardian.
When he looked to become a football and basketball player in high school, he was forced to look elsewhere in sports and found the pole vault.
When he finally became settled on a college, he quickly realized how unsettling it was, which prompted the jump to his alma mater.
And when he graduated with a degree that specialized in talking, he instead chose to listen to his heart.
A child once fighting to stay out crime, now following his childhood dream of fighting to stop it.
When facing the obstacles that have come his way, Duane Chappell has shown what made him so successful as a pole vaulter.
He has always been willing to take that leap of faith.