The sweet talk kept the Irishman alive on his way to three world titles. The important event in 1984 It was the Penn Relays, a final leg of 3:38.6 that helped Villanova secure the 4x1500m meet record of 14:52.81.
The Penn Relays are an anomaly in many ways. You won’t see anything like this for the rest of the year. It doesn’t necessarily represent the track and field as much as participation. It’s like Mecca every year at the end of April at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Donald Walsh, who was an Irish runner, eventually became my coach in my youth and said, “Villanova (University of Pennsylvania) is where you should go.” Formerly great athletes went there. Ron Delaney. Eamonn Coughlan. Sonia O’Sullivan finally went there. We had a tremendous history and relationship between Ireland and Villanova.
I quickly learned that Villanova and the Penn Relays were synonymous. Jumbo Elliott, who was my coach when I was recruited and my freshman year, felt there was no better place to run because it was in our backyard in our hometown. But it became this extremely stressful weekend in terms of expectations, and until 1983 we never left that stadium without some kind of award.
But Jumbo died in the spring of 1981, and I lost my way as an athlete for three years. When British and Irish athletes come to the US, there are some that do and some that don’t. Sometimes people blame the US system, but my philosophy is that kids are kids. They are 18-22 years old. Do you spend time partying? You spend time not focusing on what you need to do, and in 1983 we went to the Penn Relays and came away with nothing.
I sat behind the wall and cried alone. I realized that I let myself down, I would let everyone down. I decided that I was going to drop out of college, go home and never come back. Looking back, I probably went into mild depression. I really felt lonely.
When I went home I ran into my old coach Donnie Walsh who also grew up in Cork and went to Villanova. You didn’t meet Don at the club. You would meet him in the pub and he would always be associated with bookies and gamblers. He loved the dog track. He loved horse racing. He sat me down in the pub and looked at my diary. There was one thing he always made me hold on to.
After looking at it for about 10 minutes, he said. “You are an absolute disgrace, they gave you a gift and you are wasting it.” I made some excuses and he said. “Either cheat or get out of the pot. You either want to be in it or you don’t. But don’t go through the rest of your life blaming people for why things didn’t work out for you. You need to start working out if you really want to be serious.”
Of course I thought of a different spin. I was saying: “Hey, my roommate is coming from the US tomorrow. I want to go camping in a week. How about we start in a week?’ I always remember how he said. “You start tomorrow, you’ve wasted enough time as it is.” It was as if he grabbed my shoulders and said: “Son, you’re going in the wrong direction here.”
When I walked home that night, I felt 10 feet tall. There was something in me that was transformed that evening. I did go hiking, but I worked out every day. It was transformative. I finally decided that I want to become a runner. I really wanted to commit to it. I was not afraid of losing. A lot of athletes won’t go out there because they’re literally afraid of failure, afraid of disappointment. I never looked at it that way.
I remember having a cup of coffee with my sister and she said, “I could never do what you do in life because you fail so many times,” but I always looked at failure as a moment of growth and deep understanding. How can I fix this for next time out? How can I succeed next time?
And when I got back to campus, the team knew something was going on, like, “this guy’s on a mission.” The kids started following me.
We really started to get better. We won our conference and went to NCAAs and I coached the following winter. I was really training with one goal in mind, that maybe I could make the Olympic team. But I had to get some payback at the Penn Relays.
The 4x1500m was on Saturday, but we had lost the distance relay to Arkansas the day before. I was beaten by Paul Donovan on the closing 1600m leg. That was our best shot and we should have won. People said we didn’t have hope from the metric mile, that we didn’t have enough depth. I was so angry though. I went back to my teammates and said. “If you get me within 50 yards of Paul on Saturday, I promise you he won’t beat me.”
They passed the baton to me and I sat on him and waited until the start of the turn and then passed him and we won. When I crossed the border, I had this feeling that I still have today, relief, redemption. It was like the whole world was lifted off my shoulders.
And in that moment, during that year, I learned that the most important thing in life was not the fear of failure, but the fear of not trying. The reason the race means so much to me is because after everything else, even going out to the Olympic Stadium, going to the World Championships, the pressure I felt that weekend when I went out there to get that redemption.
Marcus O’Sullivan Fact File
He was born on 22.12.1961
Events: 1500m/mile
PBs: 3:33.61/3:50.94
Honors
1993 world indoor championship 1500m gold
1989 world indoor championship 1500m gold
1987 world indoor championship 1500m gold
1985 European indoor championship 1500 m silver
This feature also appears in the April issue of AW magazine. Subscribe here
