His voice slowly raising, hands wildly gesticulating, leaning forward in his chair, Classical Studies professor David Romano cites exact Olympic track and field race times.
"Just by watching the races, some of the races we saw in Athens ... you'd be inspired watching those races. You gotta be inspired. Just watching that, it was unbelievable."
Romano combined his life's passion for ancient Greek culture and athletics this summer as an avid spectator of the Olympic games in Athens, Greece.
After finishing off the archaeology digging season this past June in Mount Lykaion, Greece -- a sanctuary site of ancient games -- Romano headed off to Athens.
He reported on his experiences in an Internet weblog.
He wrote from many perspectives; as an archaeologist he contextualized modern events with a historical perspective, as an athlete he cited winning race times, and as an individual he marveled at the momentous experience.
"Just being there watching these events, these heroes ... I wouldn't have missed it for the world," Romano says.
In many ways, Romano's Olympics experience in Athens is the perfect synthesis of his life's work.
In his office located on the third floor of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Romano spends his time studying ancient city and landscape planning, computerized applications in archaeology and ancient athletics.
Among the usual milieu of professional and personal knick knacks, book shelves crammed full of academic texts and stacks of files that swim around computer screens, there is also a poster of Romano's former college classmate and track star Steve Prefontaine looks over the room.
But for Romano, the poster of Prefontaine doesn't just reflect a personal history, but rather a passion for athletics that drives his work perhaps as much as any volume on Greek history.
"I suppose being an athlete myself meant that I could identify with athletics from a very young age," Romano says.
"I think [my interest in athletics] has to do with the whole idea of the ancient Greek athlete ... that sort of captured my imagination when I was 18 years old, that somehow the training of a young athlete could be bound up with something greater: your civic identity, the way you take part of society -- that athletics was part of something bigger."
Initially interested in becoming a high school teacher and coach, Romano pursued a master's degree in physical education at the University of Oregon. However, he became increasingly interested in archaeology and eventually steered away from his original plan, going on to obtain a Ph.D. in archaeology from Penn.
Since then, he has taught classes such as "Ancient Cities and City Planning" and "Introduction to Greek Archaeology" through the Classical Studies Department.
Living the principles that he studies on a daily basis, Romano continues to partake in athletics.
He competes in community runs and coaches a suburban youth cross-country and track and field team called the Dodgers.
Looking back on his work, Romano says, "There has never been a dull moment, I will tell you that. Especially in ancient Greek athletics, because there is so much to know."
Romano's Olympics blog can be found online at www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/researchfeature.php.
