Fraternity holds 3 a.m. charity run

Mike DeAngelis doesn’t make a habit of running through the city at 3 a.m.

But this weekend,… Mike DeAngelis doesn’t make a habit of running through the city at 3 a.m.

But this weekend, he made an exception.

DeAngelis was one of about 50 brothers participating in Phi Delta Theta fraternity’s annual Backyard Run. Each year, the fraternity brothers collectively run, with a football in hand, from Heinz Field, Downtown, to West Virginia University’s Mountaineer Field before the Backyard Brawl rivalry football game. The brothers use the 79-mile run to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

The brothers began this year’s run at 3 a.m. Saturday and ended 11 hours later, at 2 p.m.

DeAngelis was one of the first brothers to run Saturday morning.

“It’s really surreal running through a suburban neighborhood like Mt. Lebanon with a football at like 3 in the morning,” he said. “Everyone’s sleeping. There’s a car honking, and I’m getting yelled at, and we’re blaring the most random music.”

The Honda Insight had all four of its windows down, playing any music that was on the radio. They didn’t bring any CDs for the ride, and radio stations became scarce in some areas.

“At one point, we were playing Christmas music,” fraternity brother Bob Johnson said.

Each brother ran about a mile and a half, some over flat land, others up nearly steep hills. As they ran, the brothers received occasional cheers or beeps from passersby. Most of their inspiration, they said, came from the cars their brothers were driving. The brothers were divided into groups, and each group was assigned a 5- to 8-mile section of the race.

Tommy Lacek and Ethan Light, who were in charge of logistics, determined each car’s starting point and how many miles each car was responsible to run.

As the last runner of a car was finishing, they approached the carefully calculated point where the next runner awaited. The football was exchanged, and the next car would begin its designated leg.

Johnson is in the Projects and Marketing class that’s working on promoting the Honda Insight. He said he convinced Honda to let his fraternity use the car for the race, so someone could follow runners and watch out for their safety.

The run route followed Route 19 for its entirety. At some points, the chase car following directly behind the runner would cause a back-up in traffic caused by the restrictions of the road being two lanes.

“The most awkward thing in the world is trying to go through populated places with a car going 5 mph and somebody is running in front of the car with a football in the middle of the city,” said Johnson, who noted that aside from that, the ride in the new car was “excellent.”

The fraternity raised more than $2,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation by getting corporate sponsors for the run, sending letters to local businesses along the running routes for donations and holding a date auction. Underground Printing, the Honda Get Further Campaign, the Hill Group, Panera Bread, McDonald’s and RRI Energy sponsored the run.

Corey Clyde, chairman of the third annual fundraiser, said the event began in 2007.

Nick Dell’oma, the founder and original president of Pitt’s chapter of Phi Delta Theta, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a child, so the fraternity decided to adopt the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as a philanthropy, Clyde said.