Ben's Bench CHS 2006
Donation protected
A Bench for Ben
Ben Massam was a beloved member of Chatham High School's Class of 2006. He was known for his exceptional speed and prowess as a runner, and most of all, he was known for his kindness. The Class of 2006 is special not only because of Ben but because of its solidarity. When there is hurt or pain or suffering, we show up for one another. We show up because there's an unspoken camaraderie and love among us all that we share because our formative years were spent growing together, together with Ben. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, and as a way to process our grief, show our love for Ben, and pay tribute to his memory, the Class of 2006 would like to install a bench for Ben, in a place where he loved to run: Loantaka Park in Morris County. Any excess funds will be donated to a charity of the Massams' choice in honor of Ben. Our gratitude and sorrow in the wake of Ben's passing is eloquently and poignantly expressed in Will Quinn's tribute below.
“We Got Massam”: A Tribute to Benjamin Oakes Massam, 1988-2019
Inevitable and often foreshadowed, death nonetheless has the power to stun, to astonish, to render us almost mute with incomprehension.
Such was the news of the passing of Ben Massam, my high school classmate, at the age of thirty-one from cancer in early November. That few of his childhood friends knew he was so sick compounds the shock. At times quite private – even shy, though not necessarily in the ways one might expect – the fact that many of my high school classmates from our small hometown did not is perhaps less surprising upon reflection. Ben was never one to seek attention.
But it still took my breath away. Not from exertion or exhaustion, like the times I ran far behind him on the cross-country team, but from an inward collapse of the lungs and a deep sorrow that someone so vibrant, so unique, and such a fixture of our youth could pass so suddenly. Hunched tightly over my computer after reading the news, I could only imagine that my physical reaction mirrored that of so many of my friends and their families, let alone his: we are all diminished by his absence.
The Fastest Kid in the State
Ben’s grip on the imagination of so many people in Chatham where we grew up stems from a simple yet strange fact. He was probably the finest athlete our high school ever produced – certainly one of the finest in the state of New Jersey – yet one would never have thought to cast him as such.
A tall, lanky kid with a beak of a nose, Ben Massam was made to fly – the longer the distance, the better. Between the end of eighth grade and graduation, he took all the prizes in the most solitary of sports, one which does not typically reward crowds or inspire pep rallies. Yet by sophomore year, we all knew he was special. He was purpose-built for a kind of greatness that no one could touch.
Literally. One can normally be forgiven for the slight exaggeration in retrospect of the prowess of one’s teenage friends in high school. But it is not necessary to gild the lily at all. The boy could run like the wind. His mile time peaked at 4:17. He ran indoor 5,000-meter races in 14:05:66 and cross-country 5ks across muddy fields and hills at well less than 15 minutes. He set numerous course, county, and division records. He placed first nationally in the 5,000-meter at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in 2006. There were brief moments where he was the fastest boy in our state and, for brief moments in time if memory serves, the fastest boy in the country.
Yet the source of Ben’s strength was not his body or even his health, “his most prized possession” according to his team biography at the College of William & Mary where he excelled. It came, as the great Scottish runner Eric Liddell says in Chariots of Fire, “from within.”
Runners, particularly long-distance runners, are a strange breed. Their strength lies as much in mental fortitude as physical conditioning. There is no logical reason to push one’s body to the limit barring extraordinary motivation. Even the soldier Pheidippides, who ran to bring the news of Greek victory at Marathon and collapsed and died upon delivering his message in Athens, did so when it was not, strictly speaking, necessary: he was not bringing a message to flee or to send more troops. The battle had been won. He could have stopped at any time.
Ben could have done the same. But his greatest competitor was himself. It was seldom recognized in high school and is perhaps even less so in retrospect, but it is worth remembering that Ben did not even letter in cross-country our freshman year. There were faster people in our class at first, though none of them were anywhere near what he would become. Some of us may even have finished ahead of him at the first race of the season. Yet he came back the following fall, quietly having logged hundreds of miles running around northern New Jersey and on vacation and everywhere his feet would take him. I like to imagine Ben, who was often extremely quiet and spoke little unless you asked him a direct question, retreating into the recesses of his mind during these long runs when Discmen were clunky and useless and iPods primitive and exorbitantly expensive. In that silence in the summer of 2003, he found a supply of pure will that he brought forth with discipline and courage.
No wonder our class cheer by our senior year in 2006 had become, “We got Massam.”
Running to the Beat of His Own Drummer
It feels presumptuous to say that his running offers a skeleton key to the rest of Ben’s life. The truth is that we did not keep in touch after high school. I do not think he kept in touch with many people from Chatham at all. An only child, he was close to his parents and, perhaps, his college teammates and his colleagues.
Yet for those of us who spent time with him – or around him, since I cannot claim to have been anywhere near him during practice – every day for the intense four years between fourteen and eighteen that constitute high school in America, it is easy to see how the qualities that made him great on the field tracked with the rest of his passions and his life.
As a kid, Ben was hilarious, eccentric, and kind – characteristics we witnessed in in German, English, History, gym, lunch, and study hall more than we ever saw during practice, when he was typically focused.
it is hardly hyperbole to say that Ben had the funniest, most offbeat, and, at times, the bluest sense of humor of anyone at Chatham High School. The opposite of the stereotypical class clown, cutup, or burgeoning comedian, however, he never left his fingerprints on any of his best material. Massam could often be found whispering some bit of particularly absurd double entendre in the back of the classroom to his friends and then goading them into saying it out loud. Ben never wanted the credit for his jokes – his goal was to keep his head down – but he was persistently able to make us laugh uproariously.
It was in this manner that Ben got innocuous phrases introduced into our circle of friends’ vernacular and then banned by our teachers, who knew they referred to some particularly inappropriate inside joke but didn’t know what exactly. Needless to say, German was a particularly easy language to mine for obvious material but Massam could also get phrases in English, even proper nouns, banned if he found the right proxy to work it into class presentations. It was the only time I saw him face any disciplinary action: the mildest slap on the wrists, of course, because you could never pin anything on the guy. If you weren’t a teenage boy or a teacher grappling with a burgeoning insurrection, you would never know that mild-manned Ben Massam was the instigator. He was an artist of innuendo and the pen. His cartoons – particularly a multipage tourist’s guide to hell drafted with a few collaborators over several sessions of study hall – were similarly epic.
Ben was also willing to pursue his offbeat hobbies – even when none of his friends shared them. None of us understood or followed horse-racing, his other great passion. Apparently kindled by trips to Monmouth Park as a child, Ben was a passionate devotee of horses and the jockeys who rode them, I still recall him reading The Daily Racing Form whenever the opportunity presented itself in study hall. He may have even once stated, matter-of-factly but not without a certain wryness, to a teacher that it was his primary source of news.
As impossible as it is to imagine Massam at a stereotypical off-track betting lounge, sitting next to a bunch of retirees in velour suits smoking cheap cigars and putting money down on the ponies, he would have been able to fit right in. He probably had the odds memorized with mathematical precision. It is small wonder that he landed a job at Thoroughbred Racing News after an informational interview with one of its editors. It is even less surprising that he eventually served as its Features Editor and that his colleagues loved him, respected him, and honored his memory with a moving obituary.
Finally, Ben was kind. It was a subtle kindness. In English class our senior year, I recall him giving a presentation on the short stories of Raymond Carver, a selection that seemed curious to me at the time but whose understated insight into people and gratitude for life seems in retrospect to mirror Massam’s own. Ben knew how to encourage and motivate his teammates without grand speeches – not just through his example but by being with us everywhere except on the track, where he was laps ahead. And finally Ben loved his parents, who plainly adored him. He always seemed to be coming back from a hike with them somewhere out West. If I could fix his memory in my mind, it would be at the beginning of a trailhead somewhere waiting for them: ready to go wherever his legs could carry him at the pace he set.
Ben Massam was a beloved member of Chatham High School's Class of 2006. He was known for his exceptional speed and prowess as a runner, and most of all, he was known for his kindness. The Class of 2006 is special not only because of Ben but because of its solidarity. When there is hurt or pain or suffering, we show up for one another. We show up because there's an unspoken camaraderie and love among us all that we share because our formative years were spent growing together, together with Ben. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, and as a way to process our grief, show our love for Ben, and pay tribute to his memory, the Class of 2006 would like to install a bench for Ben, in a place where he loved to run: Loantaka Park in Morris County. Any excess funds will be donated to a charity of the Massams' choice in honor of Ben. Our gratitude and sorrow in the wake of Ben's passing is eloquently and poignantly expressed in Will Quinn's tribute below.
“We Got Massam”: A Tribute to Benjamin Oakes Massam, 1988-2019
Inevitable and often foreshadowed, death nonetheless has the power to stun, to astonish, to render us almost mute with incomprehension.
Such was the news of the passing of Ben Massam, my high school classmate, at the age of thirty-one from cancer in early November. That few of his childhood friends knew he was so sick compounds the shock. At times quite private – even shy, though not necessarily in the ways one might expect – the fact that many of my high school classmates from our small hometown did not is perhaps less surprising upon reflection. Ben was never one to seek attention.
But it still took my breath away. Not from exertion or exhaustion, like the times I ran far behind him on the cross-country team, but from an inward collapse of the lungs and a deep sorrow that someone so vibrant, so unique, and such a fixture of our youth could pass so suddenly. Hunched tightly over my computer after reading the news, I could only imagine that my physical reaction mirrored that of so many of my friends and their families, let alone his: we are all diminished by his absence.
The Fastest Kid in the State
Ben’s grip on the imagination of so many people in Chatham where we grew up stems from a simple yet strange fact. He was probably the finest athlete our high school ever produced – certainly one of the finest in the state of New Jersey – yet one would never have thought to cast him as such.
A tall, lanky kid with a beak of a nose, Ben Massam was made to fly – the longer the distance, the better. Between the end of eighth grade and graduation, he took all the prizes in the most solitary of sports, one which does not typically reward crowds or inspire pep rallies. Yet by sophomore year, we all knew he was special. He was purpose-built for a kind of greatness that no one could touch.
Literally. One can normally be forgiven for the slight exaggeration in retrospect of the prowess of one’s teenage friends in high school. But it is not necessary to gild the lily at all. The boy could run like the wind. His mile time peaked at 4:17. He ran indoor 5,000-meter races in 14:05:66 and cross-country 5ks across muddy fields and hills at well less than 15 minutes. He set numerous course, county, and division records. He placed first nationally in the 5,000-meter at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in 2006. There were brief moments where he was the fastest boy in our state and, for brief moments in time if memory serves, the fastest boy in the country.
Yet the source of Ben’s strength was not his body or even his health, “his most prized possession” according to his team biography at the College of William & Mary where he excelled. It came, as the great Scottish runner Eric Liddell says in Chariots of Fire, “from within.”
Runners, particularly long-distance runners, are a strange breed. Their strength lies as much in mental fortitude as physical conditioning. There is no logical reason to push one’s body to the limit barring extraordinary motivation. Even the soldier Pheidippides, who ran to bring the news of Greek victory at Marathon and collapsed and died upon delivering his message in Athens, did so when it was not, strictly speaking, necessary: he was not bringing a message to flee or to send more troops. The battle had been won. He could have stopped at any time.
Ben could have done the same. But his greatest competitor was himself. It was seldom recognized in high school and is perhaps even less so in retrospect, but it is worth remembering that Ben did not even letter in cross-country our freshman year. There were faster people in our class at first, though none of them were anywhere near what he would become. Some of us may even have finished ahead of him at the first race of the season. Yet he came back the following fall, quietly having logged hundreds of miles running around northern New Jersey and on vacation and everywhere his feet would take him. I like to imagine Ben, who was often extremely quiet and spoke little unless you asked him a direct question, retreating into the recesses of his mind during these long runs when Discmen were clunky and useless and iPods primitive and exorbitantly expensive. In that silence in the summer of 2003, he found a supply of pure will that he brought forth with discipline and courage.
No wonder our class cheer by our senior year in 2006 had become, “We got Massam.”
Running to the Beat of His Own Drummer
It feels presumptuous to say that his running offers a skeleton key to the rest of Ben’s life. The truth is that we did not keep in touch after high school. I do not think he kept in touch with many people from Chatham at all. An only child, he was close to his parents and, perhaps, his college teammates and his colleagues.
Yet for those of us who spent time with him – or around him, since I cannot claim to have been anywhere near him during practice – every day for the intense four years between fourteen and eighteen that constitute high school in America, it is easy to see how the qualities that made him great on the field tracked with the rest of his passions and his life.
As a kid, Ben was hilarious, eccentric, and kind – characteristics we witnessed in in German, English, History, gym, lunch, and study hall more than we ever saw during practice, when he was typically focused.
it is hardly hyperbole to say that Ben had the funniest, most offbeat, and, at times, the bluest sense of humor of anyone at Chatham High School. The opposite of the stereotypical class clown, cutup, or burgeoning comedian, however, he never left his fingerprints on any of his best material. Massam could often be found whispering some bit of particularly absurd double entendre in the back of the classroom to his friends and then goading them into saying it out loud. Ben never wanted the credit for his jokes – his goal was to keep his head down – but he was persistently able to make us laugh uproariously.
It was in this manner that Ben got innocuous phrases introduced into our circle of friends’ vernacular and then banned by our teachers, who knew they referred to some particularly inappropriate inside joke but didn’t know what exactly. Needless to say, German was a particularly easy language to mine for obvious material but Massam could also get phrases in English, even proper nouns, banned if he found the right proxy to work it into class presentations. It was the only time I saw him face any disciplinary action: the mildest slap on the wrists, of course, because you could never pin anything on the guy. If you weren’t a teenage boy or a teacher grappling with a burgeoning insurrection, you would never know that mild-manned Ben Massam was the instigator. He was an artist of innuendo and the pen. His cartoons – particularly a multipage tourist’s guide to hell drafted with a few collaborators over several sessions of study hall – were similarly epic.
Ben was also willing to pursue his offbeat hobbies – even when none of his friends shared them. None of us understood or followed horse-racing, his other great passion. Apparently kindled by trips to Monmouth Park as a child, Ben was a passionate devotee of horses and the jockeys who rode them, I still recall him reading The Daily Racing Form whenever the opportunity presented itself in study hall. He may have even once stated, matter-of-factly but not without a certain wryness, to a teacher that it was his primary source of news.
As impossible as it is to imagine Massam at a stereotypical off-track betting lounge, sitting next to a bunch of retirees in velour suits smoking cheap cigars and putting money down on the ponies, he would have been able to fit right in. He probably had the odds memorized with mathematical precision. It is small wonder that he landed a job at Thoroughbred Racing News after an informational interview with one of its editors. It is even less surprising that he eventually served as its Features Editor and that his colleagues loved him, respected him, and honored his memory with a moving obituary.
Finally, Ben was kind. It was a subtle kindness. In English class our senior year, I recall him giving a presentation on the short stories of Raymond Carver, a selection that seemed curious to me at the time but whose understated insight into people and gratitude for life seems in retrospect to mirror Massam’s own. Ben knew how to encourage and motivate his teammates without grand speeches – not just through his example but by being with us everywhere except on the track, where he was laps ahead. And finally Ben loved his parents, who plainly adored him. He always seemed to be coming back from a hike with them somewhere out West. If I could fix his memory in my mind, it would be at the beginning of a trailhead somewhere waiting for them: ready to go wherever his legs could carry him at the pace he set.
Co-organizers (4)
Kate LeBlanc
Organizer
Chatham, NJ
Will Quinn
Co-organizer
Devin MacLaga
Co-organizer
Scottie Christian
Co-organizer