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O'Shaughnessy so deserves SWC honor

Former Arkansas track star Niall O'Shaughnessy will be inducted into the SWC Hall of Fame on Nov. 9, 2015. (photo courtesy UA public relations)
Former Arkansas track star Niall O'Shaughnessy will be inducted into the SWC Hall of Fame on Nov. 9, 2015. (photo courtesy UA public relations)

FAYETTEVILLE -- Niall O'Shaughnessy only stands 5 feet, 6 inches.

But in the 1970s, during O'Shaughnessy's days the Razorbacks, most of Arkansas and apparently Ireland, too, looked up to John McDonnell's pioneer leprechaun.

The Southwest Conference still does. The SWC on Nov. 9 in Little Rock will induct O'Shaughnessy as one of nine former Razorbacks greats from track and field, football and men's and women's basketball into its Hall of Fame.

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O'Shaughnessy likely won't be there. He is too ill to travel though courageously exceeding the doctors' prognosis of his battle against the brain cancer afflicting him at his Atlanta home.

So McDonnell, whose door to coaching the Razorbacks to 40 national championships was opened by Irishman O'Shaughnessy, and Frank O'Mara, another of the Old Sod, trekked to Atlanta presenting Niall with his SWC honor.

It's the least McDonnell, Arkansas' retired coach, said he could do for "the man who started it all."

Just a 17-year-old half-miler arriving from Ireland to Arkansas in 1973, O'Shaughnessy in 1974 scored for McDonnell's first SWC Cross Country champions. The streak of conference cross country championships extended through two conferences and McDonnell's final 2007 cross country season.

O'Shaughnessy adorning the cover of Track and Field News after just missing world records running a 3:55.4 mile and 2:03.10 1,000-yard run in successive indoor meets in Columbia, Mo. "put Arkansas on the map," old distance running teammates Randy Melancon and Steve Baker said, and attracted 1970s All-American distance runner Mark Muggleton to Arkansas.

Muggleton witnessed O'Shaughnessy beating world indoor mile record holder Dick Buerkle at the nationally televised Olympic Indoor Invitational at New York's Madison Square Garden, a race Muggleton participated in.

O'Shaughnessy's performance netted Muggleton a night of free beer.

"Niall beat Dick Buerkle the week after Buerkle broke the world record," Muggleton said. "New York had a large contingent of Irish fans and they stormed the track and carried Niall off on their shoulders. A particular Irishman named Frank Murphy that had run track at Villanova owned a bar in New York City. He kept us there until the sun came up while we were drinking Guinness and Harp's. We went from Frank Murphy's Bar directly to the airport."

It marked one of the few nights that civil engineering honors student O'Shaughnessy wasn't studying.

"Training we were running 100 miles a week and he was still up every night to midnight studying hard," Melancon said.

Melancon, a sophomore from Louisiana when O'Shaughnessy arrived 17 years old, and Baker, arriving as a 21-year-old from England when O'Shaughnessy was a sophomore, said they immediately looked up to the young runner with the fast feet, agile mind and unswerving team-first attitude.

"He probably has more integrity than anyone I have ever known," Melancon said.

O'Shaughnessy never complained, even when his gut-wrenching, blistering mile anchors salvaged relays victory watches for preceding distance medley relay legs sometimes running like the Three Stooges.

"I have a few of those watches, too," Baker said laughing. "It was nice to have a guy run a 3:55 mile at the end of those relays. He set the track world on fire at that time."

O'Shaughnessy represented Ireland in the 800 and 1,500 at the 1976 Olympic Games. He could have represented Ireland in the 1980 Olympics, but he took the noble way out.

McDonnell remembers it well.

"He came into my office and said, 'I'm telling you something and that I have made up my mind and you are not going change it," McDonnell recalled. "He said, 'I am not going to the Olympics.' That was in Russia and you remember President Carter boycotted because Russia invaded Afghanistan. He said, 'I am making my living here and I got my degree coming to America and I am not going to go.' I said, 'I think it's a mistake because that's a lot of years putting in the work but you have to do what you believe.' He did and that was the end of his career. You have to admire him for taking a stand."

Everything about Niall is to be admired, Baker said.

"I told John of all the people I have known in my life he was the biggest inspiration," Baker said. "I was blessed to be on a team with the guy and be around him."

Sports writers privileged to have interviewed him and see him run feel no less blessed.

Sports on 09/16/2015

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