Mick McKeon
On the day of our 20th anniversary who better to get to know than our chairman and one of our founding members Michael McKeon....
Name : Mickey mc out the back...
Age : 70 on mApril4...
Work : retired teacher....Presentation wexford...1973 to 2006...
Member since : the beginning...
Interests : politics national and international....olympism....fishing....playing guitar/singing especially in the swinging pubs...shambles etc...won the best performer in the swinging pubs with Finnegan s wake...love poetry...Yeats...Kavanagh...Heaney and especially Robert Frost....love all the good light opera musicals...have competed at some level in all athletics events except the pole vault....represented Ireland at University and club level....
Favourite event : the 400 hurdles....
Least favourite event : none..
Biggest athletics achievement : as a competitor....Athlete of the meet Darmstadt 1972....universities international won the 5000 and the 1500 on the same day..
Records held : UCD college records at 1500 steeplechase and 5000....between 1970/1973....all long since eclipsed by better athletes.
Favourite moment : Alan Mahoney winning the 400m in the National League Final...
Favourite track : College Park Trinity College....
Least favourite track : Clogher Road Crumlin....
Inspiration in athletics : so many great coaches and athletes....Jack Sweeney at UCD...when the world record holder David Bedford came to UCD to race Jack's advice to me was to sit on Bedford and Bicourt and kick with 250 to go ...half way through the race I thought the pace was too slow hit the front and pushed on opened a gap of about 10 metres then I heard Bedford saying come on John this guy is serious....they both breezed past me with 3 laps to go.....finished about 50 metres ahead of me....there s a moral there....as a coach my biggest inspiration has been the athletes I ve worked with at club national and international level.....especially those who have gone on to coach in our club...Jimmy O Neill...Shane Mc Cormack....Alan Mahoney s move to Cork was a big loss to the club in terms of his coaching potential as was Kevin Cogley s move to a different club.
Big influences in athletics : at national level would be Maeve Kyle Brendan Foreman Dermot Nagle and the most controversial of them all Chris Wall formerly the international secretary and the real driving force behind the creation of Athletics Ireland.
We had many many arguments but we never fell out.....my inspiration in politics would include Noel Browne...Garret Fitzgerald(my tutor in UCD)Charles Haughey....and Bertie Ahern...Internationally...JFK and RFK....Martin Luther King....Fidel Castro....
My favourite : food fish n chips from Sharkey s and Spring roll from Teng s....
My favourite drink : Guinness if the pubs ever reopen When I was training to compete my post training snack was usually my dinner
Unusual facts about me : my favourite song is Cuchulainn s Son....the best sports song ever.....but I think hurling is the most overrated game in the world.