He's still the go-to Guy

Despite physical setbacks, BAA's Morse isn't dropping out of the race

The question is how he'll handle Monday, when Guy Morse becomes Zelig, popping up here, there, everywhere on his usual race-day tour.

"It's unclear how many places I can be," says the Boston Athletic Association's executive director, sitting in a wheelchair at his headquarters in the Back Bay. "Sometimes, I've appeared to be in more than one place at one time. That may not be the case this year."

This year, the 56-year-old Morse is going through a near-Biblical visitation of physical torments. First, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. Then, at the beginning of February, Morse slipped on an icy sidewalk and ruptured both quadriceps tendons.

Yet he's managed to stay on the job, directing preparations for both the US Olympic women's marathon trials Sunday and the 112th Boston race Monday. Through it all, Morse has remained his usual sanguine self, the tranquil presence at the center of the annual April whirlwind.

"I take my hat off to Guy," salutes Bill Rodgers, the four-time Boston champion who also was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. "I can see why he's a great BAA director. He stays so calm. He's the exact opposite of me. I get hysterical and wrought up and overwhelmed."

That never has been Morse's style. Since he became race director in 1985 (he became BAA executive director in 2000), his organizing team has become renowned not only for its planning skills but also its ability to improvise on short notice. Its greatest achievement was last year's "miracle" amid wind-driven rain, when more than 20,000 runners made it safely from Hopkinton to Copley Square despite the worst conditions in nearly four decades.

"It was a whole new experience for everybody," says race director Dave McGillivray. "We've always thought about Plans B, C, and D, but they never presented themselves. They did last year."

With races on consecutive days, this year presents a much more complex challenge.

"Not since the 100th race," says McGillivray, "has the pace been as relentless."

Just as it was cranking up in December, Morse began an aggressive treatment regimen of hormones and a clinical trial for chemotherapy at the Dana-Farber Institute. Then on Feb. 1, just before he was to begin two months of radiation, one of his legs buckled while Morse was leaving his mother's house in Southborough.

"I was very gently walking and I just skidded and collapsed onto my knees," he recalls. "I rolled to my side and I couldn't straighten my legs out. My kneecaps were going in different directions. When I was lying there on the ground, I was asking myself, 'What is going on?' I didn't understand what was happening or why it was happening."

Bilateral ruptures are rare, usually occurring from traumatic accidents like car crashes. It's possible, Morse says, that the steroids he was taking as part of the cancer treatment weakened the tendons.

Three hours of surgery the next day at Brigham and Women's Hospital reattached them and Morse began radiation on schedule two days later.

"I figured I'm going to be laid up anyway and I didn't want to compromise the cancer treatment," he says. "So I went ahead."

Helping hands

His next decision was what to do about work. How many of his usual managerial duties could Morse handle? How many was it wise to handle? His doctors advised him to not overdo it, but the calendar was unforgiving.

"February probably is the worst time not to be there on a daily basis," says Morse. "It's the beginning of our extensive meeting period. It's when the nuts and bolts of things get going with all of our outside partners - the cities and towns along the route, the sponsors, the vendors. What was problematic for me was that I was taken out of that picture at the beginning."

It would have been worse had Morse been injured a couple weeks earlier when he was on a Florida cruise. If there was a blessing, it came from being in Boston where he could juggle treatment with work, albeit with substantial assistance.

His wife Nancy took leave from both of her jobs on the Cape to be with Morse full-time.

"She's been an incredible help," he says. "Talk about for better or worse. We laugh about that, but I don't know what I would have done without her."

Their Centerville neighbors check on the house daily, picking up mail.

"Our neighbors on either side are a fireman and a policeman," reports Morse, "so we've got good coverage."

Transporting him for his daily hospital visits are two "angels," an active and a retired State Trooper.

"They've picked me up every day, loaded up the wheelchair, driven me to the hospital, waited for me, then brought me back."

Morse's temporary home has been the Fairmont Copley Plaza, across the street from BAA headquarters. From there, he can stay in touch by cellphone and e-mail, and his staffers can bring him materials to review and sign.

"It's a delicate balance," says McGillivray. "You want to keep him informed and you need his input. On the other hand, you know what Guy's dealing with and you want to give him his space."

Morse's limited availability has both challenged and benefited him and his staff.

"I've been able to take a step back and look at this thing from a different perspective," he says. "Sometimes they couldn't get to me for a whole day at a time, so that required them to be more independent. As unhealthy as it's been for me, it's been very healthy for the organization."

That was Morse's approach when he became race director more than two decades ago. Put talented people around him and then let them perform.

"One would like to think you're indispensable, but you're not," says Morse. "Between the staff, the organizing committee and the volunteers and friends, the support has been incredible. More than I would ever have expected would be there for me."

'Humbling' experience

Morse has seen his team members in action long enough to know they could function without him if they had to. This year, the BAA staff will come as close as ever to doing that. Usually, Morse gets out to Hopkinton early on race day and stays until every runner has crossed the line. Then he heads into Boston to monitor operations there. The question is how he'll manage it with limited mobility.

"Will I be sitting in something like this? Will I be on crutches? Will I be able to go up and down?" he wonders. "I'm usually in the press area, on the bridge, in the VIP area, in the spectator area, in the timing booth, on the awards platform, on the ground, everywhere. But if everything goes to plan, I'm not doing anything."

If this year's plan is tentative, it's because Morse never has been through a year like this, both for worse and for better. The cancer treatments and the rehab for his leg injuries have been draining and restrictive. But through his ordeal, he has developed a special appreciation for the people at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women's ("They're amazing"), for his staff, for his friends and neighbors, for his wife.

"This has given Nancy and me an opportunity to be together 24/7 for six weeks," Morse says. "That hasn't happened in all our years of marriage."

He also has a deeper recognition of the daily challenges for disabled athletes as well as what other cancer patients go through.

"I've seen people in the hospital who don't have the light at the end of the tunnel that I do," Morse says. "I look at my injuries as temporary. Many people's are not temporary. That has been a humbling learning experience."

There was a moment in February, Morse says, when he was baffled by what had befallen him.

"I was questioning," he says. "Why is this happening? What does it mean? What did I do wrong? That sort of thing. I just didn't get it."

What he has come to accept is that there may not be answers and, if there are, they may not matter.

"I am a religious man," Guy Morse says. "You are tested and you may not ever know why. It's how you respond to it."

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.