Biography
By Jim Hague
The immortal Ray Charles recorded a song back in the 1959 that said, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
Well, that tune could very well best describe Megan Krause.
The Rutgers-Newark junior is a member of the Scarlet Raiders’ track and field program, but ever since Krause arrived from Freehold Borough High School, she has been absolutely plagued by injuries.
“You would think she had a black cloud following her,” Rutgers-Newark head coach Juan Edney said. “Right off the bat, she had an injury off and on. We had a running joke that I haven’t coached her and that her real coach is Brian Fanning.”
Fanning is the program’s athletic trainer.
“Honestly, I’ve been in the training room more than I’ve been competing,” Krause said. “Brian has been like a coach.”
Krause only became a runner during her senior year in high school. Before that, she played softball. But she liked running so much that she wanted to continue her career in college.
“She admitted that she wasn’t that great of a runner, but she wanted to give it a try,” Edney said. “When I’m trying to recruit kids, I’m looking for someone who can handle things academically. I also want kids who are dedicated. When I spoke with Megan here and there, she seemed to be bright and she wanted to run.”
Krause thought it was going to be tougher on the collegiate level.
“I wasn’t ready to give running up, so I wanted to try out for the team,” Krause said. “I spoke with Coach Edney and he gave me a workout program, what I had to do. That was it. I had no idea. I thought I would have tough tryouts, but he was welcoming me to the team.”
Edney believed that Krause had some promise as a runner.
“She looked like a hard worker,” Edney said. “But right away, she had knee and back problems.”
Early in her career, Krause complained to Edney about foot problems.
“She was running and just stopped,” Edney said. “She said her feet were hurting her. She said every time she planted her feet, they hurt.”
Sure enough, Krause had fractures in both feet.
“I didn’t know how it happened,” Krause said. “I was just running and I broke my foot. How does that happen? No one knew. Not even the doctors. I was just running. It was the craziest thing.”
Soon after, Krause developed an injury in her tailbone.
“So we sent her to the pool to do swimming workouts,” Edney said.
“It turned out that I had extra vertebrae in my back,” Krause said. “It’s obviously unreal. I spent so much time in the pool that I became a lifeguard. I figured that if I’m in the pool, I might as well get paid for it. I was in the pool every single day.”
However, there was something about Krause that tugged at Edney’s heart.
“She would do her pool workouts and then run in our meets,” Edney said. “She never complained at all. She gutted it out all the time. She ended up being our No. 1 runner in cross country. Imagine what she could do if she was healthy and trained all the time.”
Edney came up with an idea. He decided to keep Krause away from running at all for an entire month.
“She ran one of her best times at Yale,” Edney said. “She was doing some of her personal best in the 3K. She ran 13:09 and she still hadn’t been seriously training.”
“I’m just too hard headed to give it up,” Krause said. “My heart’s in it. I just can’t walk away from it. My dad thinks I’m an idiot for hurting myself so much. My friends think I’m crazy to want to get up at 6:30 in the morning and do this to myself all the time. But I can’t walk away.”
Edney is glad, because he doesn’t want Krause to go anywhere.
“She’s such a great kid,” Edney said. “I love her to death. She’s one of those kids that the others need to look at and model themselves after. She’s been injured so much and she still runs. That’s what is so amazing. Other kids have a little bump or bruise and they complain. Brian has been the one trying to shut her down, telling her she can’t practice. Without that, she’d be out there. This is the toughest girl I’ve ever seen. She goes through everything.”
Edney said that he loves Krause’s compassion.
“She’s such an animal lover,” Edney said.
How much?
“One day, I was running in a park in Newark alone,” Krause said. “And I found a little dog that was obviously hurt. She couldn’t walk. So I called the animal control. My phone was dying and it was getting dark. It was cold. But I waited until they came and got the dog. It was like three hours later. When I turned to leave, the dog tried to leave with me. That’s just my nature. I didn’t want to leave her. She was hurt. That’s just me.”
Krause said that she would do anything for Edney.
“I just do what he says,” Krause said. “I don’t think. I just run. It’s gotten me this far. Every time I get hurt, it’s a setback, but I know I can come back each time. That’s just my hard headedness. I’m glad he (Edney) likes it, because I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Krause is a criminal justice major and that just came naturally.
“My father (Frank) is a police officer and my brother (Tommy) is a police officer in Portsmouth, Virginia,” Krause said. “My mother is a court administrator in Colts Neck. So literally, I was born into it.”
Krause isn’t sure what she will do with her criminal justice degree when she graduates next year. She just wants to keep running – when she’s healthy.
“Right now, I’m in a boot,” Krause said. “I don’t know how I got hurt. I’m trying to get better before the end of the indoor season. Hopefully, I don’t want to get hurt anymore.”
Brian Fanning’s training table is busy once again thanks to Megan Krause.
