THE OTHER EIGHT Moved by another, more primal beat

By Bobby Ampezzan

Posted: August 16, 2009 at 5:20 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — The feet are mallets pounding the ground like a bass drum. The sun, the sweat, the fatigue is no different for a marching trombonist or a triathlete. Each tiny movement proceeds from the last, rehearsed endlessly, sculpted.

This is the world inhabited by Chris Knighten, the University of Arkansas' new director of athletic bands. But it's two worlds. By day he is professor, musician, maestro. At sunrise or evening he is an Ironman.

This fall is Knighten's 24th season as a band director but his first as a Razorback.

"People are so excited about being Razorbacks here," he says. Oh, they took their fight song seriously at East Carolina University, but Piratesfootball isn't exactly hog heaven.

He's well aware of the band stereotype - unfit, uncool, uninterested in sports - but he is not like that, nor are the people with whom he works. "The ironic thing, Jeremy Pratchard, the associate director of bands who's been here eight years, he's also a triathlete. He's the only other band director I know who is a triathlete."

Knighten, 46, wasn't always a jock, wasn't always gunning for the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. Until his 35th birthday he whiled away the hours inside "schools of music ... living in academia, with artists." It was a heart attack that changed his life.

Not his own. His father's, at age 43. But as Knighten approached that milestone himself he turned apage on his health. It began with a treadmill.

"One day, I thought, 'This is boring. I'd like to go a little faster.' I couldn't make it jogging around the track one time."

Eventually he ran a 5K race. He watched a triathlon, then competed in a biathlon (running and bicycling). He had shed 35 pounds and finished a 20-mile circuit in under two hours.

In 2005 he finished his first Ironman in Florida, and in 2007, by luck of the draw, he gained a spot at the world championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

It's a grueling course: a 2.4-mile swim in the open water of the Kailua-Kona Bay, a bike ride of 112 miles across the island's lava desert and a marathon run along the coast. He competed alongside Olympic athletes anda former Tour de France rider.

The water was 86 degrees that day - so warm he lost fluids in the swim. The lava rock radiated heat back into the riders' faces. The crosswinds blew 20-25 miles per hour, forcing runners and riders to turn a shoulder to thefront.

On the other hand, he swam with dolphins and sea turtles and watched the sun rise over Mauna Loa volcano.

"There are moments of incredible excitement in the beginning, moments of a lot of pain, and you know, I was out there well into thenight, almost midnight, and the last 16 miles of the run course are on a state highway that's closed and there's no lights.

"It's lava fields for miles, [and] intensely dark. They give participants glowing neckbands, so all you can see ahead on the road is jingling neckbands.

"It's very quiet. Very introspective and lonely. It really does look like the moon."

The winner ran 8 hours, 15 minutes and 34 seconds. Knighten finished 21 minutes shy of the 17-hour cutoff, at which point the athlete forfeits his medal and he is retrieved by a transport vehicle.

"That distance ... it's what do you do to get your body through that much and allow yourself some energy at the end, [and] it is the full range of human emotion in one day."

He has discovered a connection between the elite athletes he competes against and his band kids - both are equally unable to separate their performance from their capacity, their self-worth. Musicians and triathletes who struggle on a particular day may say "I'm horrible," or "I just can't do this," Knighten says. "It's given me a lot of information about how to encourage and move [my students] in the right direction. A lot of that self-judgmentis pretty confining. You get tense, and in both areas that's about the worst thing you can do." If you have suggestions for The Other Eight, please e-mail Bobby Ampezzan at

bampezzan@arkansasonline.com

Northwest Profile, Pages 37, 39 on 08/16/2009

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