Nicholas Caccavo's friends remember him as an athlete with inexhaustible endurance: one morning, a friend said, he decided he was going to run 17 miles -- and he did.

This endurance persisted in all areas, from athletics to academics and friendships. An aspiring engineer, 19-year-old Caccavo was to begin his sophomore year at Penn State today.

He died Aug. 18 when the Jeep he was riding in rear ended a tractor-trailer on Interstate 80 in Graham Township. He and the driver, fellow sophomore Shawn Browne, were traveling from Erie to State College to collect job applications and measure their apartment for furniture.

According to police reports, Browne, also 19, failed to notice the tractor-trailer slowing for stopped traffic and struck it in the rear, spinning his jeep around and flipping it onto its roof. Caccavo died at the scene. Browne was admitted to Altoona Hospital with serious injuries, but was discharged Friday. The driver of the tractor-trailer, 40-year-old Robert L. Murphy of Mason City, Iowa, was unharmged.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was unable to confirm if construction to I-80 in the area contributed to the crash.

Caccavo's viewing was held last Wednesday in his hometown of Erie. His father, Joe, said they were overwhelmed with mourners who "just came non-stop." The night before, hundreds
attended a candlelight vigil at his former elementary school, Our Lady's Christian School.

Longtime friend Tyler Nolf (sophomore-mechanical engineering) attended the viewing.
"It was a quiet, somber event," he said. "There were pictures galore ... at least two or three boards."

Nolf knew Caccavo since his youth in Erie: the two played lacrosse together in high school. He fondly remembers the afternoons they spent playing lacrosse behind the Shields Building. Although he "always wanted to win," Nolf said Caccavo's game-day competitiveness ended with the closing whistle.

"He was always one of the guys we'd hang out with after the game," he said "Off the field he was all smiles, real friendly."

Caccavo's mother said her son loved Penn State and couldn't wait to come back. He had been training this summer to run a marathon in Orlando, Fla. Cerami added that this philosophy of diligence persisted into Caccavo's moral sphere. The 19-year-old was one of the few people he knew who was "absolutely genuine and honest" in what they did, he said.