The Running Man

Last Saturday, in Harvard's 89-73 win over Yale, co-captain Joe Ciollo ran a personal-record 48.02-second 400-meter for the win. He also placed third in the 200-meter and anchored the winning 4x100 relay.

The only thing that stands out about the weekend is how typical it has been for Ciollo this year.

It seemed as if every week during the indoor season, he was breaking his own school 500-meter record--he accomplished that feat four times this year. The mark now stands at 10:03.01, with the nearest person in school history .73 seconds behind. Ciollo was Second Team All-Ivy last year and this year in the 500-meter, Second team in the 4x400 relay two years ago, and was First Team in the distance medley relay as a freshman.

This year, things haven't changed much since the move outdoors. In the Meeting of the Minds at Rice University, Ciollo finished second in the 400-meter and first in the 200-meter. Against Dartmouth and Brown, Ciollo won the 400 and 200.

And in last weekend's dual meet with the Bulldogs, the most important meet of the season to date, Ciollo did not disappoint. Harvard entered as a slight underdog based on early-season performances but sent the Elis back to New Haven as losers.

After a career of excellence, Ciollo finally got what was coming to him this spring, in his last season as a Harvard athlete--his picture on a track schedule card. Even then, not everything was right, because if you look closely, you can see etched on his right bicep a big blue tattoo of what Ciollo says is a "hideous insect being stuck with a metal pin."

"That was the one time this whole year I actually wore a fake tattoo, and it just happened to be captured by the camera," Ciollo said. "I only wear one against teams I have absolutely no respect for--that week, It was Northeastern. It's a tough-guy image, like saying, `Hey, you can't win because I'm wearing a tattoo. This tattoo means I'm faster than you."

In case you couldn't tell, Ciollo is one of the most quotable Harvard athletes. For instance, after Harvard's 118-26 blowout win over B.C. at the beginning of the indoor track season, Ciollo said:

"That's a hell of a lot of points. That's a bloodbath. We were trying to think of what to call it when we remember Dec. 5--I think it'll be the Boston College Massacre.' I have never seen this many points scored by one team-never in my life. I feel that some of those B.C. guys will be in therapy this morning. It's more than I expected. You don't expect someone to be that bad."

Although he was trying to pump up his teammates then, Ciollo will be trying to make people laugh this Saturday in the 1999 Demon Comedy fest.

He describes his humor style as "raucously inappropriate."

No matter how successful he is as a stand-up comedian, at least Ciollo can be sure of success on the track, where he is chasing the school 400-meter record of 47.21 seconds, held by Jim Heberich `85. The pursuit continues this weekend against-guess who--Boston College.

"Am I wearing a fake tattoo?" Ciollo said. "Hell yeah."