BY THEA JARVIS

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--In his gray golf hat and blue Georgia Tech jacket, Father Mario DiLella, OFM, looks like a typical Yellow Jacket fan. For over 25 years, the energetic Franciscan has offered spiritual support and a ministry of presence to thousands of Catholic students who have walked Tech's hallowed halls.

This summer, Father DiLella's campus ministry will assume global proportions, expanding to meet the demands of the 1996 Summer Olympics. After June 15, Georgia Tech's campus in northwest Atlanta will be transformed into the Olympic Village and Father DiLella will begin offering spiritual hospitality to Catholic Olympians, their coaches and staff.

"I am very excited, tremendously anxious to get going," said the priest, beaming with expectation as spring rains fell gently outside Tech's stately red brick Catholic Center. "I can't wait."

After nearly three years of planning, Father DiLella finds it difficult to suppress the energy and enthusiasm he hopes to bring to his Olympic assignment. The youthful 69-year-old campus chaplain is neither flustered nor overwhelmed by the job, only ready to begin.

"Our biggest concern is that we bring Mass and the sacraments to people in the Olympic Village," he said.

Applying his considerable organizational skills, Father DiLella has readied a 17-day Olympic schedule that includes two daily and three Sunday Masses, with the sacrament of reconciliation available before each liturgy. Mass in languages other than English may be scheduled by priests traveling with Olympic teams, Father DiLella added.

Some 30,000 small hosts and 3,000 large hosts will be ordered for use during the Olympics, as well as three cases of altar wine.

Eucharist will be celebrated in the center's main chapel which can accommodate 300 people. The smaller Blessed Sacrament chapel will be open for private prayer and reflection. A lounge area with tables, chairs and television provides a comfortable spot for guests to congregate.

Although official projections haven't been made, the number using the Tech Catholic Center during the Olympics is expected to exceed that at Barcelona's 1992 Summer Games. The Atlanta Olympics is twice the size of the Barcelona competition, which drew some 1,200 Catholic worshipers on Sundays alone.

While the upstairs of Tech's Catholic Center is being used for Mass and the sacraments, the center's spacious downstairs recreation area will be set aside for Muslim services. The building's design provides separate entrances and insures privacy for both denominations. At the neighboring Baptist Student Center, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus will be accommodated.

Father DiLella was appointed head pastoral associate for Olympic Village Catholics by Archbishop John F. Donoghue, but the gregarious friar will have help in his ministry. St. Pius X High School chaplain Father John Hopkins, LC, Father Balappa Selvaraj of Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta, and Father Melvin Shorter, CP, of St. Paul of the Cross Church, Atlanta, will assist Father DiLella in sacramental work.

In addition, Sister Susan Arcaro, rc, of the Cenacle sisters in Hoschton, and Sister Betty Anne Darch, OSF, of Port Charlotte, Fla., will offer spiritual counseling and direction upon request.

"It's a very difficult time for the athletes," said Father Shorter, local superior of the Passionist order in Atlanta. "They've been training for many years. You only get one shot at it; you don't get a second chance. To be there, to be present to them, is very important."

Father Shorter and others staffing the center during the Games get no special time or tickets for Olympic events. Their work will be steady and intense. But the priest is upbeat about his role, calling it "a unique opportunity that won't ever happen for me again."

Although most Olympic chaplains will commute to the Tech campus, Father DiLella will continue to live in his room at the Catholic Center, which was built in 1985 and sits like a knowing upperclassman on the corner of Fourth and Brittain Streets. Father DiLella's comings and goings will be carefully monitored, however, as will the movement of all who enter and leave Tech's campus during the Games.

"We are in the highest security area," he said amiably, noting that a handprint monitor and official credentials are his only assurance of entry and exit. If he runs to the grocery for supplies, "I have to take everything out of the bag to be checked. That's how serious they are!"

Eschewing the luxury of his back door parking space, Father DiLella will leave his Honda at the archdiocesan Catholic Center, a 15-minute walk from Georgia Tech, to comply with Olympic parking restrictions.

The overall shutdown of the Tech campus means neither interested family members nor well-meaning volunteers can join Father DiLella at the Tech Catholic Center during his Olympic hiatus. The New Jersey native's large Italian family and wide range of friends have offered to keep him company, but he's had to turn them down.

"I'd welcome them," he said, but "they understand" when he explains the regulations that are needed to keep Olympic Village secure.

With all the excitment, Father DiLella is still realistic about what the Summer Games will mean to his ministry. The Olympic season may be an historic moment for Georgia Tech, but it will represent a financial loss for the campus Catholic Center, whose revenues will slide when Olympic visitors arrive and Tech students depart.

The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) is leasing Georgia Tech through Aug. 6 and paying $2,000 to the Catholic Center for monies lost during what would have been the summer quarter. Unfortunately, Father DiLella pointed out, that amount doesn't come close to meeting students' generous financial support, which has averaged about $3,500 over the past three summers.

Moreover, the school schedule has been altered because of ACOG's presence on campus, said the priest, and students are unhappy about delayed, shortened summer and fall quarters.

"The kids are upset," he said. "They don't like it."

Despite the inconveniences, the Catholic Center at Georgia Tech is poised to star in its role as official venue for all Catholic services in the Olympic Village and Father DiLella is looking forward to the challenge.

"We won't know until it gets here what our Olympic ministry will involve," he mused, glancing out his office window to the busy campus that has been his home and workplace for the past quarter century. But whatever it takes, "we'll fall right into it."