Taking the lead

Matt Gioffre heard that familiar honk at 9 a.m., looked out his window and saw that familiar car.

It was July of 1996 -- the summer between Gioffre's sophomore and junior years at Ridgefield High (Conn.) -- and Bryan Kovalsky was waiting.

Gioffre laced up his running shoes and headed out into the morning air, ready to do whatever workout Kovalsky had planned, albeit at a much slower pace than his elder Ridgefield teammate.

Kovalsky might have a five-mile course in the works, one in which he might finish before Gioffre finished mile four. Or Kovalsky might suggest a seven-mile course that was wholly unfamiliar to Gioffre, running so far ahead of his teammate that Gioffre would have to find his own way back.

Or Kovalsky might embark with Gioffre upon some entirely different run.

No matter what the course, though, there was always one constant -- Kovalsky would lead.

"He used to just dust me," Gioffre said. "I don't know why I came back."

But he did, morning after morning. And look where it got him.

Gioffre is in his fourth year as a varsity cross country runner at Penn, and he entered the season as one of the Quakers' top two runners.

But before that summer of training with Kovalsky -- who graduated from Penn last year -- Gioffre was nothing more than an average pretty-talented-but-not-too-motivated high school runner.

"I didn't train much," Gioffre said. "There were good people on the [Ridgefield] team and there were the slackers.

"I was with the slackers."

Gioffre had been a baseball player until late fall of his sophomore year at Ridgefield. But then he ran a decent mile for a substitute gym teacher -- a guy who also happened to coach the winter track team.

The substitute/coach said, not too enthusiastically, "Oh, you look pretty good. Why don't you come out for the team?"

So Gioffre did. And he did alright -- 5:15 for the mile, 2:14 for the 800 meters. Nothing spectacular. Nothing that made Gioffre choose spring track over baseball that year.

But then Kovalsky convinced Gioffre to train with him in the summer. And Gioffre came back in September as the second man on Ridgefield's cross country team, behind Kovalsky.

But the ex-slacker still intended to play baseball in the spring unless he won an indoor track race.

Near the end of the season, Gioffre finally did win a race by running a 4:40 mile in his divisional meet.

So Gioffre traded his cleats for spikes and his glove for a stopwatch.

"Baseball's fun, but winning a race is ridiculous," Gioffre said.

Gioffre would know. He won many more races in his high school career and has won a handful at Penn -- including the Delaware Invitational last cross country season.

But the 5'9" harrier has also had his share of setbacks -- like the all-important Heptagonal Championships last fall. Gioffre was in the top 10 with a mile-and-a-half to go but ended up 25th.

"I just tanked," Gioffre said. "The last half mile, I couldn't wait for the finish to come. I was getting passed left and right."

That 25th-place finish came a year after Gioffre crossed the Heps finish line in 12th.

"I think he put so much into his whole last year, he ran out of gas," Penn men's cross country coach Charlie Powell said.

But Gioffre disagrees.

"I didn't train as well last year as I did the year before," he said. "I didn't concentrate on the little things, like getting all my mileage in."

In other words, Gioffre started to revert back to the slacking ways he exhibited as a high school sophomore.

But training with Kovalsky wasn't an option anymore. Gioffre's former teammate, who placed 10th at cross country Heps last year, was gone.

So Gioffre spent the summer in Philadelphia, working 9-to-5 and running mostly solitary workouts in the evenings.

"Now, no one's out there standing over me, telling me to run," Gioffre said.

In many ways, Gioffre -- along with fellow senior Anthony Ragucci -- has that role this year. He's supposed to be the motivator, the Kovalsky to the team's large freshman class.

Last Thursday, as the Quakers practiced on the Belmont Plateau course they'll race on later this month, Gioffre certainly appeared to play the role.

"He told us, `This is where you've got to roll, guys,'".Penn freshman George Weiner said. `"This is where you've got to get moving.'"

Gioffre -- the docile, pat-you-on-the-back type of leader -- has one more race on Belmont and three more seasons to race -- cross country, winter track and spring track.

He hopes to end his collegiate career like Kovalsky, who won the 10,000 meters in the 2001 outdoor track Heps -- nearly five years after the 2001 Penn graduate made a habit of honking outside Gioffre's house on a midsummer's morning.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.