| Sports Success in sports requires
not only natural ability and strength but also the desire to succeed.
The stars of the past year include athletes of astounding ability and
coaches with the Midas touch
 Clint Dempsey
He scored the United States’ only goal at World Cup 2006 in the
2-1 loss to Ghana, and was named Honda Player of the Year, and now he
has finally gotten the reward he was looking for. Clint Dempsey has joined
fellow Americans Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra at Fulham FC in the
English Premier League. The Texas native’s $4 million transfer fee
is the highest ever paid for a Major League Soccer (MLS) player.
Dempsey’s childhood was dominated by the sudden death of his sister
Jennifer from a brain aneurism. After this tragic loss, Dempsey applied
himself to soccer with an unwavering dedication and unfaltering self-belief
that has served him well in his career.
This drive saw him through a successful college career with Furman University
and in 2004 he was drafted eighth in the MLS SuperDraft to the New England
Revolution. Under the tutelage of former Liverpool FC Defender Steve Nicol,
Dempsey has developed into one of the toughest and most talented attacking
midfielders in the country. In 2004 he played two games with a broken
jaw.
His progress did not go unnoticed, and Dempsey represented his country
for the first time on November 17, 2004 against Jamaica. Individual and
forthright, “Deuce,” as he is known to his friends, is into
hip-hop in a big way and has recorded with the late Houston rapper Big
Hawk. The MLS’s reluctance to trade him frustrated the Texan, who
told the Boston Globe in September, “If the right situation comes
along, I’ll go, or I’ll wait it out. This [move to England]
is the biggest thing in my life, the thing I have always dreamed of doing.
There is no way in the world I am staying in the MLS, or coming back later
in my career.”
Whether he should alienate those who helped develop him is another thing,
but after having his UK work permit approved in January, Deuce is ready
to take the next big step in his career and try to establish himself in
one of Europe’s toughest leagues. – Declan O’Kelly
Anne Donovan
As a basketball player, coach and Hall of Famer, Anne Donovan has blazed
a path throughout her career. The four-time Olympian now has the challenge
of leading the U.S team to Olympic Gold in Beijing in 2008.
 At 6’8”
Donovan was made for the game, and was the most coveted player for college
recruiters as she was finishing high school. The Ridgewood, New Jersey
native chose Old Dominion University (ODU) and went on to have a stellar
collegiate career. Aside from participating in four Olympics, she also
played for the U.S in two World Championships, leading the team to a gold
medal victory in 1986.
With pro options limited in the United States, Donovan played in Japan
and Italy. After she retired she went to work at ODU as an assistant coach
before being named head coach at East Carolina. At the start of the 2000
WNBA season Anne temporarily coached the Indiana Fever. In 2002 Donovan
became the second coach in WNBA history after being named head coach of
the Charlotte Sting. Donovan lasted two seasons with the Sting before
being named head coach of the Seattle Storm.
The youngest of eight siblings, Donovan traces her roots to County Cork.
In the upcoming months she will be taking her team to Europe for some
scrimmage games and to South America later in the year for an Olympic
qualifying tournament. – Bridget English
John Duddy
2006 has seen Derry’s famous son John Duddy become New York’s
favorite fighter.
He had a phenomenal year in which he won two belts and was declared most
Distinguished Champion of the Year.
 Duddy made quick
work of Shelby Pudwill on March 16, 2006, taking the WBC-sanctioned Continental
Americas Middleweight Championship in the process. This was followed with
a solid win over Freddy Cuevas in June on the undercard of the Miguel
Cotto / Paul Malignaggi title fight. Duddy’s year peaked on September
29 when he took part in one of the most exciting fights of the year, winning
the IBA middleweight title in a grueling bout against Yori Boy Campas.
This punishing bloody battle earned Duddy a lot of respect in the division
and a whole new legion of fans. It did not come without a cost, however,
as cuts sustained during the fight have kept him out of the ring since.
Stories of detached retinas and finished careers circulated, but Duddy
and his management Irish Ropes quashed them and declared the Derryman
ready for his now annual Paddy’s Eve bout at Madison Square Garden,
where his opponent will be tough Minnesotan Anthony Bonsante. –
Declan O’Kelly
P.J. Haggerty
P.J. Haggerty has come a long way since he started bowling at the age
of two. The twenty-one-year-old just recently made Team U.S.A., 2007 after
three years on the Junior Team U.S.A.
 Haggerty’s
career highlights include Team Gold, doubles silver and trios bronze at
the 2005 International Youth Friendship Tournament and a silver doubles
medal at the 2004 World Youth Championships National. He was also the
USBC singles champion in 2006.
“I’ve gotten the chance to meet lots of new friends from
all over the world through bowling,” Haggerty says of the sport.
In fact, it was bowling that brought him together with his girlfriend,
Stefanie Nation. The couple met as members of the Junior Team U.S.A. Both
have enjoyed successful collegiate careers, including MVP honors for the
2005-6 collegiate bowling season. They also competed together in the Open
Championship in 2006. Though Stefanie is a Miami native and Haggerty lives
in California, the pair have been together for two years and enjoy traveling
together for competitions.
Haggerty is a first-generation Irish-American with roots in the province
of Munster. In January he joined the staff of Brunswick, a premier bowling
supply company. Currently he is looking forward to beginning training
for Team U.S.A. in Colorado Springs in March and is hopeful that his college
team at Fresno State will capture a national championship.– Bridget
English
 Virginia
McCaskey
Virginia McCaskey might be the only NFL owner with a “Pray the
Rosary” bumper sticker on her car.
Aside from being principal owner of the Chicago Bears – which her
late father George S. Halas founded in the 1920s –she attends mass
regularly, doesn’t eat meat on Fridays and is active in the anti-abortion
movement.
Ask her about her priorities and she doesn’t hesitate.
“Faith, family, football,” the 84-year-old great-grandmother
told Irish America days after the Bears’ Super Bowl XLI loss.
Her father launched the team with $100 and two basic goals: win, and popularize
pro football.
It goes without saying that the NFL became a success. And the Bears alone
could fetch around $1 billion if sold today.
But the team isn’t on the market, Mrs. McCaskey indicated in another
recent interview. Right now she and Halas’ 13 grandchildren are
the primary owners, and she wants the clan to keep the Bears – although
not necessarily keep day-to-day oversight.
In 1999, she made the decision to essentially fire her son Michael –
who was seen by fans as callous and incompetent – as team president.
She put a non-family member in charge for the first time, and set into
motion this past season’s success.
“It was a bumpy road a lot of times, how I should sell the team
and give Chicago competent ownership,” she said. “OK, maybe
I’m not competent, but Ed [McCaskey, her late husband] and I found
the people to do the job.”
Control of the Bears was supposed to have gone to her brother. But he
died unexpectedly in 1979, and Halas followed in 1983. So Mrs. McCaskey
found herself “in a role she never really sought,” said former
Bears executive Jerry Vainisi.
Even so, she’s considered a treasure in the league, with a former
commissioner once describing her as “the First Lady of the NFL.”
She rarely speaks publicly, and is modest in her spending, which her
son Tim attributes to her Depression-era upbringing. She lives in a ranch
house in the same suburban neighborhood where she raised 11 kids.
She is more polite and behind the scenes than her ferociously driven dad,
but is likewise strong-willed. That was evident in the 1940s when she
eloped with Ed. In the 1980s, she disbanded the popular Bears’ cheerleading
squad, which she thought “looked and acted cheap,” according
to the Halas biography Papa Bear.
Mrs. McCaskey’s roots are Bohemian, but she and her family embraced
Mr. McCaskey’s beloved Irish heritage. The couple socked away money
so each child could pay for a trip to Ireland when they hit 50. They also
helped organize a 1997 pre-season Bears game in Dublin against the Rooney
family’s Pittsburgh Steelers.
Perhaps not enough rosaries were said that day for the Bears, though.
They lost 30-17. – Robert Herguth
 Amanda
McGrory
Amanda McGrory’s sprint finish win at this year’s New York
marathon was the most exciting race of the day. McGrory and Shelly Woods
from England, competing in the wheelchair competition, raced neck and
neck and it was only in the last stretch that McGrory pulled away, finishing
in 1:54:17, two seconds ahead of Woods. “I was so shocked to win
because I was a late entry, I had been in Japan where I came second, so
it was my second marathon in a week,” she told Irish America.
But challenges are nothing new to McGrory. Paralyzed below the waist at
age five as a result of a rare neurological disorder, McGrory, not without
struggle, has refused to let her disability inhibit her. The bubbly basketball
playing University of Illinois psychology student is well on her way to
the top of her sport. Before the marathon win, she already had a breakthrough
year, winning the 800m gold and the 400m silver at the International Paralympic
Committee Athletics World championships in Assen, Holland.
Next up for McGrory, whose paternal grandparents hail from Donegal and
Kilkenny, is the Boston marathon, whose undulating hills will suit the
lightweight, who is a strong climber. After that, marathons in Switzerland
and Minnesota as part of preparations for the long- term objective: gold
at the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008. – Declan O’Kelly
 Pat Riley
On December 12, 2005 Pat Riley came back to the bench as head coach of
the Miami Heat and went on to win the 2006 NBA championship. Reilly had
said that he would trade all his rings for one national title for the
Heat, and by winning the title he has cemented his legacy as one of the
all-time greats.
A three-time Coach of Year (1990, 93, 97), Riley has won seven world championships
as a player and coach. He coached the L.A. Lakers to four of their five
NBA titles in the 1980s, and the New York Knicks from 1991-95, then signed
with Miami Heat as coach, team president and part-owner in 1995.
He has also earned a reputation as a motivational speaker. His books Show
Time and The Winner Within have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller
list.
Riley grew up in Schenectady, New York, where his father Lee was a high
school coach. In a 1995 interview with Irish America, he said, “What
the Irish are all about is that there is tremendous pride, there is a
great work ethic, and there is great discipline.”
He and his wife, Chris, live in Miami, Florida, with their son James,
and daughter Elisabeth, and are involved with numerous charity and community
service projects including the Elizabeth Glaser’s Pediatric AIDS
Foundation, The Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and the Magic Johnson
AIDS Foundation.
Despite promising to stay at the helm for at least one more season,
Reilly announced on January 3rd that continuing hip and knee conditions
were forcing him to take an indefinite leave of absence. Here’s
hoping the rehab goes well and the always smartly attired Reilly will
be pacing the sidelines again soon.– Declan O’Kelly
 Brendan
Shanahan
After almost twenty years in the National Hockey League, Brendan Shanahan
is still going strong and scoring goals. In a career that has seen him
play for the New Jersey Devils, St. Louis Blues, Hartford Whalers, Detroit
Red Wings and NY Rangers, he has demonstrated the leadership and playing
skills that should see him inducted into the Hall of Fame once his playing
days are over.
Oh, and Shanahan is a winner too. Three Stanley Cups (all with the Wings)
and multiple all-star team nominations attest to that. He is also a member
of an elite club of players who have won Olympic, World Championship,
Stanley Cup and Canada Cup/World Cup of Hockey titles.
Shanahan also cares about the league. During the lockout in 2004 he arranged
a summit in Toronto to try and improve the NHL once they all got back
to work.
Born and raised in Mimico, Ontario, Brendan's mother Rosaleen is from
Belfast and lives in Toronto, and his late father Donal was from County
Cork. Shanahan, who is married with three kids, became a U.S. citizen
in 2002.
With over 600 goals on the NHL, the left wing has made a lasting contribution,
both on and off the ice, to the game of hockey. – Declan O’Kelly
 Maureen
Shea
Finishing a degree, working in public relations and being a professional
boxer is some challenge, but Maureen the real “Million Dollar Baby”
Shea sees it as more a matter of time management, which says a lot about
her. She is known for her role as Hilary Swank’s sparring partner
in the Oscar winning movie Million Dollar Baby, but her own life is the
story of a fighter who just won’t go down.
The unbeaten Super Featherweight, an English major who does public relations
for Irish Ropes Promotions has a record of nine wins, including four knockouts.
She is as tough as they come, and she has come through a lot. “
As a child I had a lot of negative energy and as I got older I faced a
fork in the road. I didn’t really know what to do until I found
boxing. I found myself in an abusive relationship for three years. Boxing
really helped me get out of it and really helped me focus. I was kicked
out of high school my junior year and boxing gave me discipline, It turned
my life around.” she told Irish America in October.
Although always serious about her boxing, she found it hard to find
people who could invest the proper time to develop her skills. “It
wasn’t that I didn’t have good enough trainers, for a long
time it was more that they didn’t believe in me enough, but I was
stubborn and wouldn’t give in, and if this stubborn streak and perseverance
is something I got from my dad and his Irish roots and heritage, I am
glad of it.”
Dad, a former marine and retired NYPD detective whose grandparents came
from County Kerry, will celebrate his 66th birthday on March 16, the day
Maureen fights at Madison Square Garden. Shea, who trains out of Gleason’s
Gym in Brooklyn under the watchful eye of Hector Roca, is glad to play
her role in promoting boxing for women. “I see a lot more women
in gym and I really believe that had a lot to do with the movie. When
I was starting out there I had no one to help me out or give me some advice.
Now I am in a position to give back and am glad to do so.”–
Declan O’Kelly
Bob Sheridan
Bob Sheridan was first behind the microphone for a fight in 1966. Since
then, he has called more than 800 championship bouts and become an integral
part of boxing’s historical soundtrack. From radio to broadcast
television to closed-circuit to pay-per-view; been there, done that.
Sheridan is the international voice of boxing. He’s the commentator
for the foreign-rights feed on most major bouts held in the United States
and also for many fights overseas that are transmitted by satellite to
the U.S. He was ringside when Muhammad Ali battled George Foreman in Zaire
and Joe Frazier in Manila. He has called the fights of legends like Sugar
Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Roberto Duran. He was behind the microphone
when Mike Tyson bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear. In large
swaths of the world, his voice is synonymous with the sweet science.
Sheridan’s parents were born in 1905; his mother in County Mayo
and his father in County Longford. Both of them came to the United States
as toddlers.
 Bob was born in
Boston in 1944. “None of my grandparents were educated people,”
he says. “But they were very family-oriented and wise. My father’s
father, James Sheridan, was a sheet-metal worker in Boston, who died before
I could know him. He passed the trade on to my father, who later became
a building contractor. My maternal grandfather, Andrew Dougherty, was
a farmer in New Hampshire. He knew a lot about Irish history and politics
and talked endlessly to me about them.”
Sheridan went to college on a baseball scholarship at the University of
Miami. “Baseball was my first love,” he says. He graduated
in 1966 and, that summer, played a few games at third base for the Miami
Marlins, who were a Class-A farm team for the Baltimore Orioles. “There
was never any chance I’d stay with the club,” he acknowledges.
“I’d been brought in to fill a spot until some kid they’d
signed out of high school joined the team.”
His first year out of college, Sheridan also taught physical education
in the Dade County school system and hosted his own radio talk show on
WDER-FM, a small station in Miami. “I bought my own airtime,”
he remembers. “It cost ten dollars for a two-hour slot between 6:00
AM and 8:00 AM every Sunday morning. If I sold more than ten dollars in
ads, I made a profit.”
But WDER-FM led to bigger things. The general manager for the Florida
Marlins was Bill Durney, who co-hosted a radio show on WGBS (a major Florida
station) with Red Barber. Barber was semi-retired and living in the Sunshine
State. In earlier years, he’d been a radio and television baseball
play-by-play announcer of legendary proportions. Durney introduced Sheridan
to Barber.
“When I was young,” Sheridan says, picking up the story, “I
wanted to be Babe Ruth. I had a pretty wild lifestyle, and I used to tell
people that I was Babe Ruth reincarnated, except I’d been born four
years before Babe died and I couldn’t play ball like him. However,
I did have a tremendous ability to talk, and Red hired me. At first, I
lined up interviews for him and read the sports news on his show. Then
my role expanded. Red taught me a lot about the business. I learned from
him that it doesn’t all come from the top of your head. There’s
research and preparation. I prepare for every fight today like it was
my first. I prepare for each undercard fight the same way I prepare for
the main event. I learned that from Red Barber.”
Working with Barber gave Sheridan exposure throughout Florida. Then boxing
entered his life.The first fight that he saw in person was Cassius Clay’s
conquest of Sonny Liston in Miami Beach on February 25, 1964.
“Chris Dundee, the on-site promoter, called our baseball coach at
Miami and asked if he could send some kids over to the arena to sell Coke
at the fight,” Bob remembers. “Half a dozen of us went. I
think a Coke sold for a quarter back then. We each made about four dollars,
but I wasn’t there for the money. I was there for the fight. Clay
wasn’t the most popular guy in the world, but I liked him. When
the main event started, I stopped selling Coke, sat down in an aisle about
twelve feet from the ring, and watched the fight. Of course, none of us
had any idea of the magnitude of the history that was being made.”
In late 1966, Sheridan began calling Chris Dundee’s fights in Miami
on WGBS radio. Boxing was a popular sport back then. There were fights
in town every week, and Sheridan’s work became increasingly popular.
“The more you do, the better you get,” he says. “And
as I improved, more things fell into place.”
Dundee started taking Sheridan to fights out of town. He was hired to
do radio color commentary for University of Miami football games. The
first championship fight he called was Jerry Quarry against Jimmy Ellis
for the WBA heavyweight title in 1968. Television work followed.
By the mid-1970s, Sheridan had gained a considerable following. Then his
life took an unusual detour. He moved to Ireland and began raising cattle
on a small farm in County Clare. “It’s hard to relate to city
people the pleasures of working on a farm,” he says. “But
remember; my grandfather was a farmer, and I loved horses and cattle.”
Sheridan owned ten acres in County Clare, leased a hundred more and, at
one point, had two hundred head of cattle.” Then the detour got
stranger.
“I figured I was breeding cattle and raising them, so why not ride
them,” he remembers. “I tell people, I was always a bullshitter
so bull-riding was the next logical step. Anyway, I took up rodeo bull-riding.
In retrospect, it was crazy. This was before flak jackets. There were
a lot of bruises and I broke my back one time at a rodeo in Arkansas.
I’d fly from Shannon to the United States, do a rodeo, and fly back
home again. For a while, I was Aer Lingus’s number-one non-commercial
account. The last time I got on a bull was in 1981 at Madison Square Garden.
I got bucked off in two seconds. The chute wasn’t even shut before
I was off. After that, I stopped. But it was a very enjoyable period in
my life. Rodeo cowboys are great athletes and fun guys to be around. The
characters in rodeo are like the characters in boxing.”
In late 1981, Sheridan left the cattle business and moved back to Boston.
“I loved every minute of it,” he says. “But land became
too expensive to lease.” He now lives in Las Vegas with his wife
of ten years, the former Anne Kelly, who was born in County Tipperary.
“I was a hard-drinking womanizing single guy for a long time,”
Sheridan acknowledges. “I was married once before to another Irish
girl, and it was a horrible marriage because I wasn’t mature enough
to handle it. Whatever went wrong in that one, I’ll take responsibility
for it. I’m a much better husband now.”
In addition to being a better husband, Sheridan is also now a fixture
on the international boxing scene. He’s behind the microphone for
forty fight cards annually, but that doesn’t begin to tell the story
of his travels. In one seven-week stretch earlier last year, he was ringside
for fights in Memphis, the Philippines, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Boise, and
South Africa. In 2005, he visited Australia eleven times.
Here it should be noted that Sheridan has had four heart attacks and
twelve angioplasties. “I have heart attacks like other people have
the flu,” he jokes. But in the next sentences, he adds,” Any
health problems I’ve had are the result of genetics and eating and
drinking too much. Don’t blame boxing; the raveling isn’t
a problem. I get a bit tired sometimes, but there’s always an adrenaline
rush when the fights begin.
“I love boxing,” Sheridan says as his thoughts return to
the sweet science. “It’s the purest sport in the world; it’s
the greatest sport in the world. And my enthusiasm for it is one of my
strengths as an announcer. I’m not a journalist. I don’t focus
on the negative when I’m commentating. Sure, boxing has problems,
but other sports have problems too. My job as a boxing commentator is
to give people the facts and entertain the public. I never forget the
brutality of boxing and how dangerous it is. I was tough enough to get
on the back of a bull again and again. I’m not tough enough to be
a fighter. But boxing takes poor kids without hope like Muhammad Ali and
Mike Tyson and elevates them to a place where they’re among the
most famous people on the planet. And each fight is an event. Nothing
excites me more than two great fighters getting in the ring for a championship
fight.
“There’s an old saying,” Sheridan observes in closing.
“If you find a job you love, you never have to do a day’s
work in your life. When I’m behind the microphone, I’m happy.”
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