Romeo Collina

Romeo Collina (born 7 June 1953) is an Italian former water polo player. He competed at the 1980 Summer Olympics and the 1984 Summer Olympics.

While playing for the Italian Olimpic team, Collina was also a student of the Faculty of Economics of the Sapienza University of Rome and he graduated cum laude with Professor Federico Caffè. The relationship between the student and his supervisor generated some humorous comments since Professor Caffè was very short (only 4' 11" tall) and Collina very tall (6' 7" tall). They develop a fruitful academic collaboration which led, after the graduation, Collina to find a job with the FIAT corporation, at the time the largest Italian company. While Collina moved to Turin eager to start his work as manager and devote less time to sporting, he discovered that he was seconded to FIAT Torino (later Sisport), the company water polo team. Professor Caffè often quoted the case as a typical example of the wide-ranging activities carried out by large corporatioins.