Rodolfo ("Rudy") Chapa (born November 7, 1957, in Hammond, Indiana) is a retired American track and field athlete who specialized in the middle to long-distance events.
That same year he also won the Indiana state mile in 4:05.8h (converts to a 4:04.4h 1600 meter time), a time that held the state meet record until 2011, when it was broken by Center Grove's Austin Mudd in a competitive race with Carmel High School's Chris Walden and Westfield High School's Connor Martin.
While he won some local road races (such as the Sports Med 10K in 29:21 and the Double Eagle 10-Miler in 48:08 in October 1983) Chapa's only performance of note after leaving Oregon came in the 1983 New York City Marathon when he ran a time of 2:11:13 (for 7th place), the second fastest American marathon debut at the time (behind Salazar's 2:09:41 at New York in 1980).
After his athletic career, Chapa first served as the global director of sports marketing at Nike, Inc.
He then left NIKE in 1999 to pursue his own entrepreneurial vision, which manifests itself today as SPARQ (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness), a sports equipment and media company.