O'Toole, Antalics pontificate on life

Recently, 'Prince' senior writer Sofia Mata Leclerc sat down with two long distance runners, freshman James O'Toole and senior Dan Antalics, to discuss topics ranging from running to Bill Brasky.

Daily Princetonian: How is the team doing?

James O'Toole: I like the direction that the team is heading because people are starting to take the lifestyle a little more seriously after cross-country. People weren't satisfied, and now a bunch of guys are waking up at 6:30 every morning to do runs, and Ben Stern got a tattoo on his arm to pump himself up.

DP: So what is this lifestyle?

JO: I guess just not going to practice and being done with it. It's being conscious of everything you can do to make yourself a healthier person and a better runner. It's a holistic sort of thing.

DP: Does it include the tattoo?

JO: It does include the tattoo.

DP: Do you have one?

JO: I hope to, but I haven't worked up to that point yet.

Dan Antalics: In my younger and more vulnerable days I somehow ended up in a tattoo parlor and got charged an exorbitant sum to get a tattoo started on my arm — which was just a blue dot.

DP: Why didn't you get it finished?

DA: Because my friend pulled me out of the chair when he saw that it was actually starting.

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DP: What are Grey Shirt Names?

DA: Men's cross-country has a tradition of giving each new freshman a nickname to welcome him to the team that describes or commemorates them. We get shirts made up for them that we present at the banquet at the end of the season.

JO: My Grey Shirt name is "SmarterChild," I guess because I have a really good memory for pop culture trivia in general.

DA: I was given the name "Minor League" because I deferred a year before coming to Princeton to play minor league baseball.

DP: Really?

DA: Actually, that's not true. I got "Minor League" because I made some quote one time about a group of girls being "out of my league." I was in the minors back then — I didn't have the fine game that I have today.

JO: I'm on the farm team.

DA: It can be difficult sometimes. . . having to wear such small shorts.

DP: So let's talk about the shorts. Are they necessary? Do you enjoy wearing the shorts?

DA: Usually that's one of the questions people ask who don't know much about running. They don't ask about how fulfilling the sport is or what the team's accomplished. They either ask why do you do something that gets you so thirsty or why do you wear such embarrassingly small shorts. The answer is, plain and simple, we like them.

JO: I think that in the cross-country culture you'd be ridiculed for wearing normal-sized shorts.

DP: So normal shorts are for amateurs and little shorts are for serious runners?

DA: Yeah, we tend to ostracize the guys that don't wear the shorts.

DP: Do you know Bill Brasky?

JO: Yeah I know Bill Brasky. He's a ten-foot tall beast man who showers in vodka. He's a recurring SNL skit where a bunch of drunk guys say absurd things about him. There's this guy on the team, Eric Beights, who took a year off. None of the freshmen had ever met him, so people would tell Eric Beights stories like "There's a rumor that's going around that Eric Beights ran five miles in 25 minutes wearing a Santa costume." The Eric Beights stories became of Bill Brasky-like proportions. Despite running with him, the lore still exists.

DP: Who are your heroes?

JO: I guess I would have to go with Eric Beights, just because I heard a rumor that he jumped off the Empire State Building and only sprained his ankle.

DP: Do either of you live near anyone famous?

DA: I sort of live near a distinguished punk rock musician. They live a pretty normal lifestyle. Occasionally they ask us if it would be okay to practice, and I would ask if I could practice with them but they'd say no on account that I don't play any cool instruments.

JO: And you're a square.

DA: Yeah, plus I'm a square. . . at least that's what they told me.

DP: The elusive Runner's High: fact or fiction?

JO: Fiction.

DA: Running isn't really the way people talk about it in popular running magazines. The distance running that we do is about competing and winning races, not so much about achieving this so called elusive high.

JO: It's about pain.

DA: Most runners have a love-hate relationship with the sport. There's a famous quote that says, "Running is perhaps the greatest metaphor for life, for you get out of it exactly what you put into it." It can have a lot of positive effects on your life.

JO: Yeah, it keeps me off the streets.

DP: Fill in the blank: For a better life you should...?

JO: Shave a P into your chest. I did that. [Lifts shirt revealing shaved P].

DP: Best Track and Field moment?

DA: Once, in high school, I got hit by a guy on a bicycle in the middle of a cross-country race. It was pretty tough, but I still managed to win the race.

DP: Did you really?

DA: Yeah, part of the course was on a bike path — it was sort of a ghetto race — and this guy was coming around a turn pretty fast. The front wheel just sort of hit me in the stomach.

JO: It must have been a big wheel. It was probably one of those bikes with a big front wheel.

DA: Yes. It was one of those old-timey bikes.

JO: And the guy on the bike was wearing a monocle. I guess one of my best moments was one time I was running a race, and this girl shouted that she wanted to have my children. I didn't stop because it was a kind of important race, but I looked for her afterwards.

DP: Do you enjoy dancing?

JO: I mean, what would you do if you were walking through the locker room in nothing but a towel and the Space Jam soundtrack comes on?

DA: Yeah, he likes that really weird dancing. Let's be honest it's. . . not cool. It freaks the entire team out.