Athlete of the Week

Kate O'Neill, TD '03 Women's cross country Favorite Yale Dining Hall: "Trumbull. We eat there as a team a lot." Favorite sport to play (other than XC): Badminton Favorite Hollywood personality: Chris O'Donnell Favorite sport to watch: Swimming Favorite author: Jane Austen Favorite Yale professor: Nina Prytula Favorite holiday: Christmas

O'Neill's performances have taken the Bulldogs to heights that even Debbie Gibson's 1984 hairdo couldn't reach. Last weekend at the H-Y-P meet, O'Neill outdistanced 46 other runners with a time of 17:31. This performance followed Yale's second place finish at the 29-team Roy Griak Invitational in St. Paul, Minn., a race in which O'Neill finished 10th out of 199 runners. These finishes have vaulted the Bulldogs into the nation's top 10 for the first time in almost a decade.

Franklin Park in Boston, the site of the H-Y-P's and Fri., Oct. 13's New Englands, is even more like home to O'Neill than the room that she shares with sister Laura, TC '03, in her parents' house in Milton, Mass. She grew up training on this course and worked out there this summer in preparation for the season when taking breaks from her admittedly boring job doing data entry at Citizen's Bank.

After leaving the world of cubicles and numbers at summer's end, O'Neill and her teammates headed to Ragged Mountain in New Hampshire for a week of training and preparation. "We talked about setting higher goals for ourselves, asking more of ourselves," she said. This seems to have been effective. While the mountain was ragged, the Elis' performance has not been thus far. "Last year, we lost our concentration as the season wore on," she said. "This year, it's not happening."

The only thing that bothers O'Neill, a self-proclaimed Hollywood junkie, more than losing focus is losing her access to the new People magazines in the Timothy Dwight library. "They're usually there," she said,"but someone has been stealing them lately."

Though O'Neill began running in middle school, she wasn't drawn in immediately. "At first I thought that it was really boring. It was talking to my sister while running that made be start to like it." It's evident that her enthusiasm for the sport is only growing stronger. "We're such a deep team and we're a close group," she said. "I enjoy the trips with the team almost as much as the races."

On Fri., Oct. 13, O'Neill will be running for a top team, on her true home course, with her parents in attendance. Could she be happier? "I'm excited about it," she said, "but I'm also excited about finally running against my friend from Stonehill College. We just need to stay focused and we'll do well." Regardless of what happens, People will be waiting for her in TD when she gets back. Hopefully. Photo by Julia Tiernan.

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