'He's a competitive athlete who runs well in competition," says Jon Enscoe's roommate and former track star John Gillis. "When you need somebody who's going to run well in a tough situation, someone who is really going to come through, you're likely to go to Jon Enscoe."

Gillis's words are remarkably similar to those of a lot of people who try to describe Jon Enscoe. The interesting thing about him is that he doesn't seem to fit the stereotype of the Vitalis all-star. He doesn't look, talk or act like one. He's neither bombastic nor ascetic. But he runs awfully damn fast.

"I've always been the kind of runner who's been able to work very hard," he says. He'd never miss a work-out, and he'd consistently run about 80 miles a week.

Then came the strike last spring. Enscoe had won the Heps in the mile and had done pretty well all season. But something was wrong.

"I decided to stop because I was doing a lot of work-outs I didn't feel like doing," he says. "Track was becoming a drudgery. I didn't run for the rest of the spring, and it felt really good."

He didn't run cross country this fall either. "I didn't run this fall in order to see what Harvard is really like." he said, echoing the sentiments of a lot of Harvard athletes who have left sports.

In Enscoe's case, however, the layoff didn't last long. "During October and November it was fine. But when I went to the meets, I just kept feeling the urge to go back."

"In December I decided to compromise. I'd run five days a week. I wouldn't run on weekends. I'd skip if I really didn't feel like going."

"And the surprising thing is that I've been running better," he says.

Of this there can be no doubt. This winter season was by far Enscoe's best. He won the Big Three mile in 4:11.0. In the Greater Boston championships both he and Tom Spengler broke the GBC mile record. Spengler won the race, but Enscoe ran a 4:05.8.

The Heptagonals saw Enscoe in one of his gustiest performances. "The pace was really slow for three quarters." a teammate said of the race. "Enscoe was in the lead, but everybody knew it was going to be a bullshit last lap."

"Penn's Karl Thornton was catching up in the last lap." he said, his voice growing in enthusiasm. "As Thornton passed him, he gave him some kind of elbow, a legal elbow, and put him out into the fourth lane. Enscoe won it easily after that. It was an incredible race."

Head coach Bill McCurdy thinks he's tough too. "He's a very, very strong individual, both physically and emotionally." he says. "In running, his strength is in capacity to face a challenge and know he's going to be able to do it. He reacts to competition."

Everybody says he's competitive, but his combativeness in sports seems to mellow him as a person. He was admitted to Harvard Law School, but he's not sure he wants to go. "Seven years in Cambridge, on the East Coast is ridiculous." he says.

In feat, it's hard to see Enscoe in the role of Ryan O'Neal. "I never really sit down and think about talking about myself," he said sitting back on a couch in his room, and that's a pretty unusual thing to hear around here.