The Marty and Tom Celic Run: An Island Tradition that Could be Around Forever

SILive – September 06, 2016

by Cormac Gordon

It was a typical Celic Run on Saturday at Clove Lakes, the road race that suits this Island may better than all the others.

It was, as always, a family affair.

With all sorts of people present who are still connected to Marty and Tom Celic.

There were relatives, friends, neighbors, teammates, classmates.

Some running in the racing Triple Crown 4-miler, some not.

But all there, 40 years after the first of these events.

It made Steve Celic smile.

“Think about it,” he was telling a friend while standing near the Clove Lakes Park finish line. “When I go, hopefully someone will say, ‘He was a nice guy.’ Then they’ll bury me, and that will be that.”

Not so for his two brothers, he said.

“All these years later, people still remember them. That’s quite a legacy.”

It is a lasting legacy for these two brothers from that big family from Egbertville, two of the five children of the late Matt and Inez Celic.

And, knowing Staten Island, I wouldn’t be surprised if this 40th annual race someday becomes the 140th annual.

Wouldn’t be surprised, either, if some young firefighters a century from now are showing up to light the grills and flip the burgers and work the course and do whatever else it takes in the same way they do today.

That’s the strength of the bond of Marty and Tom Celic with the Island community.

The way the two brothers died has a lot to with that connection; Marty, a 25-year-old firefighter battling in 1977 to help try and save a city on the brink; Tom, a 43-year-old business executive struck down when the madmen came to attack us on 9/11/2001.

Staten Island is town populated by both city emergency workers and people scarred by the terrorists at the World Trade Center.

There were grayheads in the park yesterday, long-retired cops and firefighters, who were on duty in the East Village the day Marty Celic was trapped above an arsonist’s fire East 8th Street.

And plenty more people present who were at – or who were enveloped by – the events and the aftermath of 9/11 when Marsh & McLennon vice president Tom Celic was murdered along with thousands of others by the terrorists at the World Trade Center.

They were there to see Mike Cassidy and Victoria Pontecorvo win the men’s and women’s sides of the event, nothing new there for two of the Island’s very best.

But this run isn’t about running, really.

Except in the broadest of ways.

The Celics were runners.

Lou Bergonzi, a former Monsignor Farrell teacher and still a Lions track coach, remembers both. Bergonzi brought the entire Farrell track team to the park yesterday to help out with race.

It’s what’s called a teaching moment.

“It’s great for the kids to get the opportunity to be a part of something like this,” he said. “They get to learn about the kind of people the Celic’s were.”

And what were the brothers like for someone who can all the way back to the high school days for both?

“They were stars,” Bergonzi laughed. “Marty was the life of the team from the minute he came to Farrell, and Tom was such a great person. I don’t say this often, but they were just wonderful people.”

This commemoration began a long time ago, back in 1977.

And in 1977 New York was nothing like it is today.

That arson fire that ended the life of Marty Celic – a memorial garden stands at that site today – was one of more than 12,000 arson fires in the city that year.

And 11 days after the fire – at 9:30 on a hot summer night – the city went dark when a Con Ed transformer blew.

What followed was looting and mayhem, more fires, and cops battling lawbreakers up and down the same streets where Celic had worked.

Store owners sat in their shops with loaded shotguns on their laps, and 4,500 arrests were made across the five boroughs.

There was no place left to house the people who had been cuffed and processed.

A couple of weeks later the Son of Sam – David Berkowitz – was arrested after having shot 13 and murdered six.

No, New Yorker is nothing like that now.

Just as it isn’t anything like it was the day the madmen showed up on 9/11/2001 and murdered Marty’s 43-year-old brother, Tom.

From that smoldering, chaotic, gruesome Tuesday of almost 15 years ago, The Towers have been replaced, the businesses restored, the area of downtown has come back to life in hundreds of ways, big and small.

One thing has been constant since late 1977, however; there’s been a road race run on Staten Island in the name of a Celic family member.

First for Marty, now for Marty and Tom.

And, knowing this borough, it would be no surprise at all if someone is still running it 100 years from now.

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