Students who work weekends hold a variety of jobs: running the cash register at a convenience store or the concession stand in a movie theater, stocking shelves in a department store or a supermarket, working in the kitchen in a fast food restaurant or the daycare at the local fitness club.
Nate Tompkins ’06 of Bristol, Rhode Island.
Champlain’s Nate Tompkins ’06 helps Jason Pisano train for wheelchair marathons.
“I’m the way he lives his life,” Tompkins says of 33-year-old Pisano, who lives in West Warwick, Rhode Island, and is confined to a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy. His work with Pisano isn’t all athletic. Tompkins takes Pisano to bars, clubs, movies and the beach, helping him to enjoy a busy, active life. “I get compensated, but it doesn’t matter,” he says. “I stay extra and do whatever needs to be done, otherwise he can’t live his life as fully.”
Tompkins has been racing with Pisano for three years. The two made contact initially when Tompkins answered an ad in a newspaper. “It seemed interesting, so I called him about it. I liked him from the start. I got a feeling that I would like running with him,” Tompkins says. The two have run in, among others, the CVS Downtown 5K in Providence, R.I., the Mystic Places Marathon in Niantic, Conn., and have trained together for the legendary Boston Marathon, in which Pisano has competed for 10 consecutive years. In 1975 the Boston event became the first major marathon to include a wheelchair division competition after Bob Hall completed the race in 2:58:00. It was Bob Hall who built Pisano’s race chair.
While most wheelchair marathoners use their arms to propel their chairs, Pisano uses his legs to push himself backward throughout the course. “It’s such a different manner of racing,” Tompkins says, that Pisano competes in a “mobility-impaired” division rather than a wheelchair division. His record is six and a half hours for a marathon. Pisano has raced in 30 marathons over the last 10 years. Tompkins says his marathon partner will retire after he has completed 50 marathons.
After the Boston Marathon, Tompkins’ coaching continues in track and field. Pisano competes in the Nationals in the 100, 200, 400 and 800, among other events. This year, however, Pisano will skip the Nationals to attend the Cerebral Palsy World Games in July as a member of the U.S. team, and Tompkins will be going with him, also as a member of the team. Pisano will compete in the 100 meter.
When the two race together, Tompkins jogs beside the front wheel, steering and braking with a rope that’s tied to the front of the chair. “He’s been racing for most of his life,” Tompkins says of his training partner. The pair race mostly in summertime and run marathons in the fall. “I go back weekends and work with him,” Tompkins explains. During the week, Pisano is a freelance journalist who writes human interest pieces for the weekly Coventry Courier in Rhode Island.
For the past two years, Tompkins also has worked with Pisano on a wheelchair soccer team based in Springfield, Mass. The season runs from August to January. Tompkins gets in a wheelchair and practices with the team. He applied that experience to help run a wheelchair soccer camp last summer for the benefit of young, disabled children.
“I can still have my life afterward,” he says, “but after I leave Jason can’t get out. It’s kind of unfair for me to do what I want when I want, so I help him out.”
A junior, Tompkins transferred to Champlain from the Community College of Rhode Island last fall
due to the strength of Champlain’s International Business program. He lives on campus in Pearl Hall.
—Warren Baker
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