Former cross country coach Michael Chaffee speeds through the neighborhoods of Mission Hills, searching for the group of girls’ varsity cross country runners on their route of the day. Once he spots them, he will do anything — including lying on the hot asphalt street — to get the perfect picture.
He can’t stand up in one place to take a picture without falling backwards — let alone run anymore due to his age.
“He's somebody that truly does live and breathe running,” former cross country and track coach Tricia Beaham said. “And even though he may not be able to run himself, [photography] is a way that he vicariously can still do that.”
An East graduate himself, Chaffee was involved in cross country and track all four years of high school before graduating in 1963. He didn’t stop running there — he went on to the University of Kansas cross-country team, and ran multiple marathons.
Chaffee started coaching alongside Beaham for East in the fall of 2000 and was an assistant cross country coach, along with co-distance coach for the track and field team.
“I was more of a cheerleader than I was a coach,” Chaffee said.
Since retiring from teaching and coaching at East in 2018, Chaffee has no obligation to come to every cross country and track meet.
But he continues to come back.
“Once you're a runner, you're always a runner, even if you can't run,” Beaham said. “And so he really enjoys being able to solidify somebody's race and showing them the beauty of the sport through photography.”
Chaffee doesn’t claim to be an expert in hitting the F-stop or changing the ISO. In fact, he began photography by taking photos with disposable cameras while still coaching.
“I'm not a really good photographer. I enjoy doing it, but I don't know what I'm doing. I've always had a passion for running, and I still have a passion for it.”
He doesn’t adjust the settings unless he needs to correct the lighting. He simply enjoys capturing any scene that comes before him.
In the beginning of his coaching career, he would bring ten informatic cameras — which allow no retakes or viewing the photos after you take them — with ten rolls of instamatic film in total to shoot each meet.
“He always loved carrying the camera, just to capture and to make things a little more permanent,” Beaham said. “Races go fast and they're fleeting, but yet you have that picture that you can keep in memory forever.”
He didn’t save the limited film his cameras had for just the varsity runners, but took photos of every athlete from C-team to varsity.
After years of using Polaroid cameras, Chaffee upgraded to a Canon EOS. Even though he still doesn’t edit the photos, this camera allows him to set it to ‘Sports’ mode to capture the fast-moving runners and view the pictures on the camera itself.
At the end of the season, he takes his SD cards to CVS to print photos for the cross-country and track banquet. Even though he doesn’t attend, he wants to give praise to the athletes — the runners and coaches look forward to searching the tables with the selected photos for themselves.
“He doesn’t like to get attention or praise for things,” current head coach Mallory Dittemore said. “I think he knows that we're all gonna [praise him] and I don't think he wants that at all. I think he wants to kind of fly under the radar.”
From being part of the first coaching squad at East to implementing a no-cut policy and coaching around 300 runners for one cross country season, to starting the tradition of taking the runners on a trip to Colorado, Chaffee's legacy extends far beyond his photography.
Throughout his career, he led by example. Even though he cannot physically run himself, he continues to show up for the runners, showing his lifelong love for the sport.
“[Chaffee’s photography] shows everybody, especially the kids, somebody who really cares,” Beaham said. “It doesn't matter whether you're the first on the cross country team or the three-hundredth.”
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