Morgan Campbell writes of his epic 100-metre battle in memoir 'My Fighting Family'

The following is an excerpt from CBC Senior Contributor Morgan Campball's new book, My Fighting Family:

When the starter called us to our marks, I quit all my fidgeting and the manic pre-race pacing that my teammates said made them nervous, stepped out in front of my blocks, and gazed the length of the straightaway. Lane four, my favourite, and not just because the middle of the track was reserved for the fastest people. It also lined up with a brown-and-beige trash can at the foot of a grassy berm, at the south end of the stadium at Etobicoke Centennial Park, so it made focusing on my own lane easy. Just run to the brown steel drum.

I breathed in deep, then exhaled, mindful of the time. Every sprinter wants to cross the line first but settle into the starting blocks last. The bigger the event, the longer people take. This race, at the Blue and Gold Classic on the first Wednesday in May 1995, mattered. We knew, because the meet took place at the stadium, not the lumpy gravel track behind somebody's high school, and because almost every school in Mississauga and Brampton sent a team. Any meet that big would probably include future Olympians and would definitely feature races, like this 100-metre final, that felt like title fights.

Next to me, in lane three, Boyd Barrett dawdled on his way to the blocks. In a few years, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers would draft him as a cornerback, a position you don't play as a pro unless you can fly. And on my right, in lane five, Elden Forskin ran through his pre-race ritual. Elden had serious wheels, too. He was the provincial champ in ninth grade and wasn't going to half-ass this final just because we were good friends. He'd probably run even faster just so he could talk trash next time we met up at LeVar Kelman's house to get our hair cut.

"Good luck, Den," I said as we slapped hands. "I'll save you the silver medal."

"See you at the finish line," Elden said. "I'll be waiting for you."

I chuckled and turned back to my lane, clapped twice, and did a tuck jump — launched myself into the air and drew my knees up to my armpits, as if bounding over a shoulder-high boulder. If anybody asked, I told them the jump primed my muscles for high output, but I actually did it for the other seven runners. They'd watch me leap and rethink whether they could beat me. Did you guys see how high I jumped? If gravity can't defeat me, what chance do you have?

I landed, eventually, then clapped again, dropped to all fours, and crawled backward into my blocks. Was my pre-race routine over the top? Only if you've never seen eight blazing fast eighteen-year-old boys, each one a Big Man on His Campus, line up for a 100-metre final. Ego and testosterone turn frayed nerves into live wires. You didn't want to wait for other people to line up; you wanted them waiting on you, so you postured to kill time. At the start line, preening like a peacock made you normal.

I strutted around that track meet like I was somebody, because, that spring, as far as anybody could tell, I was. High school glory? Check. In February, I had been named to Football Ontario's All-Star team. The Mississauga News wrote about it and ran a picture of me in my bright red Woodlands Rams football jersey. Wore that same shirt to the track meet, so folks who had seen the article would recognize me, and so everyone else would understand that track was just training for my main sport.

Future prospects? I had those, too. While most kids were still waiting on the yea or nay from Canadian schools, I already had acceptance letters from Williams College in Massachusetts, and Northwestern University, right outside Chicago. Williams was an objectively big deal. Exclusive, expensive school with a beautiful campus in the Berkshire Mountains. They recruited me for football and track, and offered me a healthy financial aid package. Not a full ride, but enough that, if I'd understood then how student loan debt hamstrings adults, I'd have appreciated more.

And at this track meet, I sprang from the starting blocks with a single-minded focus and a simple race model: be the first guy to 50 metres, then hang on after that. The strategy hadn't failed me yet this season.

They faxed their offer to my guidance counsellor, and I still had it pinned on the fridge, next to my acceptance from Northwestern, where I really wanted to go. When I told people Northwestern's football coaches wanted me on the team next year, I was telling the truth. They just didn't want me enough to offer me a scholarship, and I was still figuring out how to become eligible for the kind of financial aid the school gave civilian students. And I would need a U.S. passport, and I didn't have one.

I had also just returned from campus, in Evanston, along the shore of Lake Michigan, first suburb north of Chicago. Arrived on a Saturday, crisp and sunny with a light breeze. Football weather in late April. Their stadium could seat nearly fifty thousand people, about half the capacity at Michigan, but still big enough to dwarf any place I might play if I stayed in Canada after high school.

I made friends with a running back named Tyrone Gooch and a wide receiver named Hasani Steele. Both stood about five-foot-ten and weighed in the 170s, so they didn't seem much bigger than I was. Cool guys, both set to enrol that fall on football scholarships. Possible future teammates. I watched the football team's springtime exhibition game and figured I could make the transition.

Northwestern had what I wanted. Strict admission standards, a journalism school, and big-time football. They had only won three games the previous season, but that was one more win than I had experienced in two years with the Woodlands Rams. At least they were losing in the Big Ten, against teams like Michigan and Ohio State. They were all just one big step from the NFL. Campus was far from home but close to family. I left Evanston bent on spending my next four years there.

Some big decisions loomed in the next few weeks, and they would have weighed heavily on a teenager willing to contemplate whether student loan debt the size of a small mortgage would snap an adult's spine. But that spring, I figured every detour and obstacle would just make an even more heart-warming backstory when my NFL contract made me a millionaire.

And at this track meet, I sprang from the starting blocks with a single-minded focus and a simple race model: be the first guy to 50 metres, then hang on after that. The strategy hadn't failed me yet this season. Every time I had lined up, I crossed the line first, including in my opening-round heat that morning.

Five strides in, I could already feel Boyd and Elden receding behind me. After ten steps, I was running alone, like I expected, opening a gap I figured even Elden couldn't close. But at 30 metres, I heard something unfamiliar. Footsteps in the next lane. Boyd Barrett's breathing. I could sense him with my skin, but I kept pressing, throttle all the way open, hoping to create some daylight before my late-race fade. Eyes on the horizon, I didn't notice the man kneeling on the infield, squinting into his camera's viewfinder, aiming his long lens at Elden, Boyd, and me.

Excerpted from MY FIGHTING FAMILY: Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles that Made Us by Morgan Campbell to be published by McClelland & Stewart, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada. Copyright 2024 © Morgan Campbell. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.