| Still Running Eamonn
Coughlan, Ray Flynn and Marcus O’Sullivan dominated middle-distance running
in the eighties and early nineties. Paul Gains catches up with the three
runners today.
The images remain even if the passing of two decades has dulled them
somewhat — a trio of Irish middle-distance runners racing to victory against
the best competition in the world. Before sold-out crowds in arenas across
the continent, Eamonn Coughlan, Marcus O’Sullivan and Ray Flynn electrified
North American sports fans with their performances making headlines every
weekend through the winter months.
All three attended U.S. colleges before
turning professional and they were the toast of Ireland and the U.S. These
days Ireland’s middle-distance fortunes have dropped behind the advance
of Africa’s great distance runners, making one wonder if the three are the
last of a breed.
Eamonn Coughlan earned the nickname Chairman of the Boards
for his ability to rapidly change gears on the tight-banked board tracks
and sprint to victory upon victory. In February 1983 the Dubliner achieved
something no man had ever done before when he dipped under 3 minutes 50
seconds for the mile (3:49.78) at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. It stood
as the world record for fourteen years until Morocco’s Hicham El guerrouj
beat it, albeit running on a much larger and therefore more accommodating
track.In the 1983 race Coughlan was pushed all the way by Ray Flynn. Nobody
else was close!
Coughlan was the sport’s marquee performer, winning the
famous Wanamaker Mile seven times, and although he won the 5,000m at the
1983 World Championships he never really enjoyed the same success on outdoor
tracks as he did indoors. After injuries forced his retirement, he continued
to live in Rye, New York for a time. It was the lure of a U.S. athletic
scholarship that had initially drawn him to Villanova University in Pennsylvania
in 1971.
“Villanova was a household name in Ireland and that was because
of what Ron Delaney had achieved in 1956 when he won the Olympic 1,500 gold
medal,” Coughlan declares. “So when I came through track and field in the
late sixties and early seventies, Villanova was the place to go. And there
weren’t too many other colleges where athletes were being offered scholarships,
so it was only the cream of the crop who seemed to get an opportunity to
go to the States because of Ronnie and obviously because of [Villanova coach]
Jumbo Elliott.”
In financial terms these three Irish runners were ahead
of their time. While they were among the highest paid athletes on the indoor
circuit, their earnings would be considered a paltry sum by today’s standards.
Nevertheless, each invested their money wisely, knowing that retirement
was imminent. Twelve years ago Coughlan moved his family back to Dublin
and accepted a full-time fundraising position for Our Lady’s Hospital for
Sick Children in Crumlin. He is still there today and is responsible for
all event marketing, which includes golf tournaments and celebrity dinners
as well as running and cycling events. Just prior to the Irish football
team’s departure for the 2002 World Cup, Mick McCarthy, Irish team manager,
worked with Coughlan on a 100km cycling fundraiser. And each year Coughlan
brings a team of runners over to the New York Marathon.
“That would be one
of my pet projects within my job, coming from the medium of running where
I enjoyed such an illustrious career, if you like,” he admits. “And with
the friendship I built up with the New York Road Runners Club ten years
ago, when there weren’t too many people doing charities in marathon running,
I decided to bring a team over to the New York Marathon, and ten years on
we are still going pretty good. And we raise about $500,000 a year on that
project alone.”
Although he has kept the house in New York and visits the
U.S. almost on a monthly basis, he knows the decision to go home was the
best thing for his family. He and his wife Yvonne have four children. The
laid-back lifestyle of home was more to his liking, where visitors can just
drop in.
“Originally I just wanted to pursue my athletics career in the
U.S. and when that was over, obviously, our dream was still to go back to
live in Ireland full time,” Coughlan explains. “And at that stage our two
eldest were approaching teenage years, and it was going to be a time where
if we stayed any longer they would be dictating where we lived. So we decided
we would make the move back.
“Our families were here, and we didn’t want
our kids to be the long-lost cousins out in the States and not having their
Irish roots to grow up with.”
Despite his and Yvonne’s concerns over their
children’s Irish roots, their eldest son, Eamonn Jr., now 20, is attending
the University of South Alabama on a golf scholarship, having completed
a two-year golf scholarship at Faulkner State Community College. Like his
dad he wants the best of both worlds, and Eamonn Sr. naturally is extremely
proud of his son’s success. The other three Coughlan children are happy
in Dublin schools for the moment.
Coughlan still maintains good relations
with Villanova University, and if a talented Irish athlete was to seek his
advice, no doubt he would direct him or her to the U.S. He recognizes the
limitations placed on athletes in Ireland, the lack of top caliber competition,
and the lack of funding.
As an athlete, the personable and extremely articulate Coughlan was in high demand across North America and would often appear
at press conferences to help promote the events he’d compete in. For a time
he raced with the slogan of the Irish Tourist Board “Discover Ireland” across
his chest. His persona clearly overshadowed the magnificent accomplishments
of Longford’s Ray Flynn who also came over to the U.S. on an athletic scholarship.
Whereas Coughlan studied marketing, Flynn earned his degree in Business
Management at East Tennesse State University and competed well and often.
Unbeknownst to all but the true athletics aficionados, it is Flynn, not Coughlan, who is the Irish national outdoor record holder at 1,500m (3:33.5)
and the mile (3:49.77). After he retired from competition Flynn elected
to remain in the United States, where he had invested money in a couple
of apartment buildings. Even today he remains a landlord.
After retirement
he used the knowledge gained from years on the European track circuit combined
with his business education to start his own sports management company.
Flynn Sports Management is one of the most highly respected international
sports agencies, representing about 70 track and field athletes from all
over the world. Recently the company opened up a soccer division and began
working with two Nigerian soccer stars who play for San Diego in the Women’s
United Soccer Association.
The company’s headquarters is in Gray, Tennessee
just down the road from where he attended university.
As part of his personal
commitment to Irish athletics, Flynn includes several Irish athletes on
his client list, among them Catherina McKiernan and Mark Carroll, two of
Ireland’s current best runners. While Carroll, who hails from Cork, attended
Providence College in Rhode Island and remains in the U.S. today, McKiernan,
who won her first three marathons in Berlin, London and Amsterdam, has always
been happiest living at home in Cornafaen, County Cavan. Carroll has also
enjoyed success winning the 2000 European Indoor 3,000m title.
Flynn’s company
negotiates sponsorship deals and appearance fees for the athletes. In addition
they offer general financial planning advice helping to ensure their clients
are able to live comfortably after retirement from competition.
For several
years Flynn represented 1996 Olympic 100m champion Donovan Bailey, helping
to turn the Canadian into a millionaire. Their association surely helped
him attract additional clients including Bailey’s Canadian teammate Bruny
Surin, the 1999 world championship silver medalist at 100m.
During last
year’s world championships two of Flynn’s other athlete-clients won gold
medals – Bahamian Avard Moncur (men’s 400m) and Zhanna Pintusevich-Block
of the Ukraine who upset American superstar Marion Jones to win the women’s
100m title.
Two or three times a year Flynn visits Ireland.He still has
family there.
Unlike Coughlan, he married an American woman, and their three
children are being raised as Americans. He remembers jumping at the chance
to come to the U.S. for an education like some of his countrymen before
him. Taking up permanent residency was not, however, in his original plans.
“At the time the number one objective was to become a top athlete and also
to be funded and have a college education,” he recalls. “I think I probably
would have ended up at college had I stayed in Ireland, but working my way
through wouldn’t have been that easy.
“I don’t know that there was a dramatic
point where I woke up one day and decided to stay. I just think it happened.
I met my wife over here. Then we just became more comfortable and I settled.
I like the area and I like growing roots and I like stability, and even
though I travel a lot with my work, I believe that you can make a place
home. There’s no need to be transferring all over the place.”
Marcus O’Sullivan
also elected to remain in the U.S. after university. He left Cork in 1980
with his eyes wide open hoping to emulate Coughlan, John Hartnett, Ron Delaney
and other Irishmen who were student-athletes at Villanova. At the 1986 Millrose
Games O’Sullivan came of age, upsetting Coughlan in the Wanamaker Mile.
The sell-out crowd was on its feet for the final three laps as the Irish
pair waged a magical battle that is so rare in sport these days. Suddenly
O’Sullivan was the king of indoor track. His appearance fees increased almost
300 percent.
Like Coughlan before him, O’Sullivan possessed a wicked kick
and could change gears on the indoor tracks. His tactical knowledge allowed
him to win three world indoor 1,500m championships in the Irish vest and
to challenge Coughlan’s world indoor record. But he fell just short. A meticulous
person, O’Sullivan kept track of each of his results in a diary and became
only the third man in history to run under four minutes for the mile one
hundred times. With the benefit of hindsight, if you ask O’Sullivan which
accomplishment he is most proud of the response is immediate.
“Finally reaching
a hundred sub-four-minute miles!” he says. “I think that was a true reflection
of who I was as an athlete. I see myself not as an enormous talent, but
as a person with the capacity to work sensibly and keep my eye on the ball
for a long period of time.”
O’Sullivan got his M.B.A. degree from Villanova
and then studied hard for his C.P.A. With his earnings from track and field,
he and his wife Mary bought a house in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and a farm
next to her parents in New Jersey. They spend weekends up there with their
two children. It is a little-known fact that the great Irish athlete Sonia
O’Sullivan, no relation to Marcus, used to babysit his kids when she was
also a student at Villanova. She went on to become the first Irish woman
athlete to win an Olympic medal when she finished second in the Sydney 5,000m.
To this day she credits Marcus O’Sullivan for offering sound advice all
through her career.
Four years ago with his mind firmly set on a business
career, O’Sullivan found himself being offered the chance to coach Villanova
University’s track and field program. The offer came out of the blue, and
after consulting those close to him, he agreed to give it a try.
“I was
absolutely miserable for the first year,” he now reveals. “I think it was
an enormous transition to go from being an athlete, which is a very self-oriented
type of position, to going to be a coach, which is a very selfless position
where you are constantly giving help or counseling or whatever, to athletes.
That was a full 180-degree turn. I never realized it but I found it very,
very difficult.”
Because he had made a commitment to the athletes and to
the program, he knew he couldn’t quit. Villanova was, after all, his alma
mater. Amidst the emotional turmoil he frequently visited his former coach
Tom Donnelly, an American he turned to after Jumbo Elliott’s death, and
who coaches at a small college in Pennsylvania. On these occasions he would
pour out his feelings. Donnelly advised O’Sullivan to stick with it, assuring
him there would come a time when he would love the job.
“He was right –
coaching is addictive. I love it. I am in my fourth year now,” O’Sullvan
says. And there are indications that he has made an enormous impact both
on and off the track.
“I am going back to Ireland now more than ever, because
of recruiting, because we have tried to rekindle alumni relationships. We
have a lot of prestigious alumni from an athletic standpoint: Ron Delaney,
Frank Murphy, Eamonn Coughlan. Last year we went back and had an alumni
dinner. We thought we would have a quiet dinner somewhere and then before
we knew it, it was a full-blown three-hundred-seat dinner. It got so out
of hand that the Prime Minister was there and the Lord Mayor of Dublin was
there and all our alumni.”
Listening to O’Sullivan talk, it is clear he
relishes the position he now holds. Indeed, all of these great Irish runners
have left as big an impression in retirement as they did when they were
on top of the world. And each would have to say he is richer for the experience
of coming to America.
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