Matt Brown (Photo by mattbrownfoundation.org)
As they have in all but two Boston Marathons since 2012, Norwood, Massachusetts natives Matt Brown and Lucas Carr will run the Boston Marathon on Monday and once again serve as an inspiration to so many.
Carr (45) met Brown (31) in January of 2010 when Brown, then 15, suffered a spinal cord injury while playing hockey for Norwood (MA) High School. The injury left him paralyzed from the neck down. Carr, then 30, heard about Brown’s injury, and he immediately reached out to his family to see if he could help. Having previously known the family before Brown’s injury, and wanting to be there for a fellow hockey player from Norwood, Carr reached out to the family. At first, Carr worked to get Brown’s story out and to help Brown remain active in the hockey community.
However, after visiting Brown at the Shepard Center for Brain and Spinal Injuries in Atlanta with a military friend, Carr felt a calling to take his support to Brown to an even higher level. Little did he know that 15 years later, he and Brown would become part of the Boston Marathon tradition, help so many in similar situations to Brown’s, and eventually form the Matt Brown Foundation.
“After I left Matt that first time at the Shepard Center with my buddy Mark Sollars, I remember Mark and he looked at me, and then we went down in the elevator, and we were like ‘What do we do? We gotta do something for this kid!” Carr recalled in an interview with RG. “He’s about to go away to Green Beret camp, and I’m just out of the Army, and he says, ‘Hey man! You’ve got some work to do, so make it right.’
So, yeah, he wasn’t wrong, we had some work to do and we did it. We laid the foundation, we figured it out, and we went from there. So, I think it was December of 2011, and I reached out to Matt’s father (Michael Brown), with the idea of doing this, and before he could even ask Matt, Matt said yes, and we were on our way.”
Racing Against the Odds
Carr and the Brown family immediately went into action and got a customized racing chair made for Matt. With the mid-April Boston Marathon fast approaching, they didn’t have much time to spare. They would need to race in another marathon to qualify for the 2012 Boston Marathon. That race wound up being the Hyannis (Cape Cod) Marathon on a cold, New England day in February, and a month later, they embarked on their Boston Marathon journey.
“That Hyannis Marathon was so cold, but then the Boston Marathon was hot as hell,” Carr recalled. “We ran it, though, and it began our process that has come so far since then. That was how it all started, but of course, the next year was horrible.”
The next year was when two bombs exploded 12 seconds apart at the finish line, killing three and injuring at least 264 runners and spectators. Thankfully, Brown was unable to participate due to pneumonia, but Carr still ran, and unfortunately, as an Army Ranger, was all too familiar with the carnage and horror of that tragic day, April 15, 2013.
“Matt wasn’t able to run, but I ran by myself for the Boston Bruins Foundation, and within about a minute and a half of crossing the finish line, the bombs went off, and we were right in the middle of the marathon being attacked while people just tried to enjoy their day. It was one of the worst experiences for many but unfortunately a normal experience for me. That being said, that tragedy truly did bring our city together, and it motivated Matt and me even more to race every year and give back to our community.”
The moniker ‘Boston Strong’ immediately became a rallying call for the city of Boston, and Carr and Brown have carried that spirit on for the last 12 years.
“It was amazing how that brought an entire city together,” Carr recalled. “Every single sports team rallied around it. The Bruins went on a run to the Stanley Cup Final (losing in six games to the Chicago Blackhawks), and the Red Sox won the World Series (beating the St. Louis Cardinals in six games) that year. We were all strangers when it happened, but by the next marathon, we were all unified, and that 2014 race is something I’ll never forget. To this day, I am so proud of Matt. He was so determined to run for everyone else and everyone who was affected by that, and nothing was going to stop him.”
Turning Passion into Purpose
Except for 2016 (illness) and the 2020 race that was canceled due to COVID, Brown and Carr have raced together in every Boston Marathon since then. When they couldn’t race in 2020, Brown, his family, and Carr decided to take advantage of extra free time from being stuck at home and went to work on creating the Matt Brown Foundation. In October of 2021, that became a reality, and the determined duo have raced under that tag since, and will do so Monday in the 129th Boston Marathon.
For Carr, the greatest part of this journey with Brown has been seeing this now 31-year-old man defy all odds to not help himself but people he doesn’t even know.
“His love for doing this has been so inspiring,” Carr said. “He’s taken on this task, and his desire to help so many people is paying off, and he’s just feeding off that and helping even more. This is his mission, and he’s so focused on it that it takes his mind off everything he’s been through. He’s had plenty of help from others, but man, has he given that back in spades and loved every minute of it.”
James Murphy
