Eamonn Coghlan - Early Life

Early Life

Coghlan was born in Drimnagh, County Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He lived in Rye, New York for a number of years in the 1980s before returning to live in Ireland. He was a childhood friend of Brian Kerr, who went on to manage the Irish national football team.

Coghlan's first running club was the Celtic Athletic Club. On its breakup he moved to the Metropolitan Harriers and was coached by Gerry Farnan. he won the Leinster colleges cross country championships & the 5000m track title in 1970. The following year he won the All-Ireland 1500 metres and 5000 metres titles. In 1971 he was offered a scholarship by Villanova University. The famous running coach James 'Jumbo' Elliott invited Coghlan to train for the Villanova track and field team. While there he won four NCAA individual titles over 1500 meters and the mile. On 10 May 1975 Coghlan ran his first sub 4 minute mile in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (3:56.2). One week later, on 17 May, he broke the long standing European Outdoor Mile record of Michel Jazy, in a time of 3:53.3 in Kingston, Jamaica. He graduated from Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and Communications.

Read more about this topic:  Eamonn Coghlan

Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:

    Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...
    Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)

    Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
    world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.
    James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)

    But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)