HAVERFORD, Pa. – Saturday's Keogh Invitational will occur as it has for the past 30 years in Alumni Field House, but beginning with the 2014 meet Haverford College's men's indoor track and field team will add a special event: the Eddie Papalia ('05) Memorial 800-meter run.
Papalia passed away on June 5, 2012, and a group of alumni from the team, in consultation with head coach Tom Donnelly and Eddie's family, wanted to organize something that would create a lasting memory of their teammate.
The first of what will be an annual memorial run happens during Saturday's invitational on the oval of the The Gary Lutnick Tennis & Track Center. Eddie's parents and family members will be present for the inaugural race and a dinner reception will follow in the evening, from 4–7 p.m., in the Common Room at Founders Hall.
Edward "Eddie" Papalia III, from Chatham, N.J., was a 2001 cum laude graduate of Newark Academy and was named the male scholar-athlete in his class before matriculating to Haverford College.
In college he was a three-time track & field All-American. Eddie completed his stellar career in track and field with a third-place finish in the 800 at the 2005 NCAA outdoor championships, coming on the heels of a fifth-place showing that winter at indoor nationals as a member of the distance medley relay.
Papalia's first all-America honor was earned by finishing seventh in the 800 at the 2003 outdoor national championship; his time of 1 minute, 50.98 seconds in the preliminary rounds remains the second fastest time by a sophomore in school history. He is also the school record holder as part of the indoor 4x200 relay.
Haverford assistant coach, and a classmate of Papalia, Jossi Fritz-Mauer '06 remembers Eddie as "a consummate teammate," who won four Centennial Conference individual championships in his career while helping Haverford capture the team championships each of Papalia's four years with the program.
Eddie majored in economics at Haverford and his senior thesis was advised by Professor Anne Preston. As a senior, Papalia was awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship for the highest level of academic and athletic achievement in a college career, which he used to obtain his master's degree in environmental management in 2007 from the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. He was an energy and climate policy analyst at Eastern Research Group, a Boston company dedicated to preserving the environment.
"Eddie had a distinctive way of carrying himself and pursuing his passions that resonated with those privileged enough to know him," says Fritz-Mauer. "He was as modest about his accomplishments as he was a fierce competitor in achieving them."
The 2014 Keogh Invitational begins at 11 a.m. The meet schedule predicts the Eddie Papalia Memorial 800 Run will begin the first of an expected six heats at approximately 1:55 p.m.