The coffee shop in the University of Toronto’s Athletic Centre may have changed its name and appearance over the years, but a black-and-white photo of Chifumbe (Rod) Chintu in a close finish of a 1963 OUA Championship race at the Varsity Stadium still graces its walls.
Chintu was a student in the Faculty of Medicine at U of T, who went on to be known as the “father of pediatrics” in his native Zambia. He was also a brilliant member of the U of T track and field team in the 1960s, and a good friend to Vice-President and U of T Scarborough Principal Bruce Kidd, himself a Varsity Blues alumnus. So, when Kidd found out that Chintu had passed away in May, he was deeply saddened by the news.
“Rod was a terrific teammate and I remember him fondly,” says Kidd “We all loved him. He was bright, funny, hard-working and he had a tremendous appetite for learning about Canadian society. He would try anything.
“The idea of coming to Canada and taking up running was not something that was very common during his time. Even now not a lot of Zambians join the track team when they go abroad to study medicine. But, he was someone who pushed boundaries, even going back to school at age 75 to get a master’s degree.”
Although they travelled and roomed together as members of the track team, Kidd and Chintu rarely trained together. Chintu ran 400 and 800m races, while Kidd was a distance runner. The only time they ran together was when U of T competed in relays.
“I would always be the slowest member of the mile relay, but no matter how far behind we handed it off, we could always count on Rod to catch and overtake the leading team, and even bring us home first. I always had this tremendous sense of confidence that once we handed it off to Rod, he would do the rest,” says Kidd.
Bill Crothers, another Varsity Blues legend and 1964 silver medalist at the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, was part of the same track team and ran the 400 and 800m races with Chintu. “Rod got along with everybody and while he was studying here it was always with a view of going back home and making a difference,” says Crothers.
After completing his studies at U of T, Chintu returned to Zambia. He became the founding dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Zambia, and he was instrumental in creating the Department of Pediatrics at the University Teaching Hospital. In a message of condolences to the Chintu family, the President of Zambia, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, praised Chintu for his significant contribution to medicine.
Kidd reconnected with Chintu several times in the intervening years, most recently while working on a sport for development project in Zambia in 2005. Joining Kidd on that trip was Donald Njelesani, who was working at the Centre for International Health in the Faculty of Medicine at that time. The work they did in Zambia became the basis of his PhD work in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education with Kidd as supervisor. Njelesani’s father, another renowned Zambian physician, was very close friends with Chintu, and Njelesani grew up calling him uncle.
“It was fantastic to sit in his home with Bruce, have dinner and hear all the stories about his time at U of T, why he joined the track team, what Toronto meant to him and how it influenced the work that he was doing in Zambia,” says Njelesani.
Njelesani, who now lives and works in New York City, ran his first marathon in NYC last year.
“When you have mentors such as Bruce (Kidd) and Professor Chintu, you have to take up running at some point,” he says.
Five years ago, Chintu was awarded Zambia’s Order of the Eagle, the equivalent of the Order of Canada, in recognition for his contributions to the medical profession and society in general. When Kidd and Njelesani met with him in Zambia in 2005, he had just been appointed vice-chair of the anti-corruption commission.
“He had a very stern sense of what was right and what was wrong,” says Kidd, “and his influence was far broader than medicine. He was a terrific runner and a giant in medicine. Whether in this society or that society, he was a big man.”