When former Eph running back Bill Chapman '64, who also lettered in golf at Williams, was in junior high school he found a small photo of a Williams football player.
"It was my dad," said Bill. "A son could not have a better role model," noted Bill, in speaking about William Lansing Chapman, Jr.
That special photo was actually cut out from a 1935 edition of the North Adams [MA] Transcript. Bill's father was a member of the Williams Class of 1937 and played both football and hockey for the Ephs.
Bill put the picture of his dad in a frame on the dresser in his bedroom and it's been there ever since. The only exception was the four years it was on his dresser at Williams.
"From our early teenage years my brother and I accompanied mother and dad to Williams football games," Bill recalled. "I have no distinct memory of deciding to go to Williams, only that I wanted to. When I entered my junior year in high school I realized what a daunting task it would be."
Bill's grandfather W. Lansing Chapman was a member of the Class of 1910 and he passed away on August 17, 1960, just before Bill reported to Williams for his freshman year.
The name Lansing Chapman still casts a large shadow on the Williams campus, as Bill's father was the lead donor in the project to cover the Ephs' ice hockey rink located behind the town courthouse on Spring Street. Before Lansing Chapman Rink was attached to Chandler Gym and Towne Field House, the rink with its new roof was a stand-alone structure when dedicated Dec. 6, 1969.
Lansing Chapman's impact on his grandson Bill is far larger than the shadow cast by the hockey rink and far deeper.
Bill followed the footsteps of both his grandfather and father not only to Williams but, after gaining several years of business experience, to the publishing business started by his grandfather and then led by his father. The business was sold in1968, and Bill went on to become a lawyer.
Chapman was the Ephs' leading ground gainer in the stunning 1961 upset of an Amherst football team that was 7-0, averaging 32 points a game, and generally thought to be invincible.
The 5-2 Ephs not only shocked the Lord Jeffs by winning 12-0 on Weston Field, they thoroughly dominated their archrival. Amherst did not enter Williams territory until the fourth quarter!
In the early 1960s most teams ran the ball far more often than they passed. The 1961 Amherst defense was feared as it had allowed a meager 37 yards rushing per game, but Chapman himself would rush for 65 of the Ephs' 142 yards on the ground in the game. In the 1961 contest both teams combined for 23 pass attempts: six were intercepted and five were completed.
Chapman notched the first and only touchdown the Ephs would need in the second quarter after he perfectly executed a quick kick on third down.
Instead of punting on fourth down the Ephs snapped the ball through the legs of quarterback Bruce Grinnell to Chapman on third down and he deftly deposited a 37-yard punt on the Amherst three-yard line. Amherst managed to get a first down, but the Eph defense forced a Lord Jeff fumble that was recovered by the Ephs on the Amherst 9-yard line.
Three straight running plays left the Ephs with a fourth down from the 2-yard line. The 1961 Ephs were not about to try a field goal as their kicking game was such that after most TDs they eschewed attempting to kick the point after touchdown and opted to try for the two-point conversion.
The decisive fourth down call was for Chapman to go off right tackle and he busted into the end zone to put the Ephs up 6-0. The two-point conversion attempt failed, but the Ephs had put Amherst behind for the first time all season, 6-0!
Typical of the soft-spoken and reserved Chapman, his fondest memory of that day was not his touchdown run, but, "being 'jazzed up' from the time I awoke until Mike Reily intercepted Mark Hallam's first pass. Then the day took on a surreal quality. It still does."
Though the Ephs took a 6-0 lead into halftime they knew Amherst was more than capable of mounting a comeback. Even a third quarter touchdown run by the Ephs' Chris Hagy to boost the lead to 12-0 was not enough to quell the fear that Amherst could respond. More concerns arose when the Eph two-point conversion attempt failed again.
Chapman does not recall a particular instance during the contest when he felt that the Ephs had the game locked up, "I just wanted everyone to keep playing the way were."
When Amherst finally made a deep surge into Williams' territory in the fourth quarter it was Chapman's classmate, Mike Reily, who stopped the Jeffs cold with his second interception of the game, this one inside the Williams 10-yard line.
"Taking nothing away from Mike [Reily], we beat Amherst because everyone on the team gave it their all on every play," Chapman stated. "It was one of those magical moments in our lives that I suspect none of us will ever forget."
Today Chapman practices law in Concord, N.H, where he is the President of the firm of Orr and Reno, where he has been since 1972.
Chapman said when he joined the firm one of the partners, Charlie Toll, was a Walter Camp All-American tackle at Princeton, who had played against his father in 1935 and 1936.
Williams nearly upset Princeton in 1935, losing 14-7.
According to Bill's grandfather, Princeton won only because it had a larger team that wore down the Williams players. Bill in hisown quiet way fondly remembers that in 1973 he introduced his father to Charlie Toll and the pair soon went off to a corner to relive the games and their mutual friends.
