|
|
|
|
|
|
Seamus celebrates with Ted Chronopoulos in the 2003 Championship match
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
1/25/2010 9:57:29 AM
Catching up with former Battery number 7 Seamus Donnelly - By Gunnar Berndt
Charleston, SC. Five years ago, Clint Mathis and Steve Cherundolo told me what it was like playing together in the Bundesliga. In 2004, Jürgen Klinsmann took a stroll with me to admit that the U.S. should have had a penalty in the World Cup quarterfinal. And only last year, Kasey Keller raved to me about the historical implications of the Sounders boom in Seattle.
Fascinating as they were, none of those interviews could ever match up to my recent hour-long conversation with former Charleston Battery and Hampton Roads Mariners forward Seamus Donnelly.
The beautiful game in America is increasingly part of a global soccer culture lusting for the glossy, flawless superstar à la David Beckham. The kind who leads his team to championships while seeming completely immune to self-doubt and other types of emotion. That’s the stuff heroes are made of these days.
It is a soccer culture that called Landon Donovan a “cry baby” for preferring to play close to home, and one in which former Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke felt he had to hide his depression from team-mates, coaches and the public for seven years before committing suicide in 2009.
Maybe it’s these realities that make it such a refreshing experience to come across an ex-striker who, while being known for his scoring touch and fighting spirit as a player, has shown perhaps his best qualities in the face of a dramatic post-career accident—humility, sensitivity, and gratitude.
Seamus Donnelly would rather tell you of the time he scored on a mishit that bounced over the goalkeeper, or on a missed penalty kick that ricocheted back to him, than admit his talent and professionalism may have had something to do with the opportunities he found in the U.S. Granted, the beginning of his American career does read as an unlikely story.
Injuries having hit the Irishman all too frequently throughout his life, he got his first painful taste of them at the young age of 18. An aspiring soccer hopeful in his native Dublin at the time, a bad case of a broken leg abruptly wiped away trial invitations from several professional clubs in England. The dream appeared all but shattered, leaving Donnelly struggling to find direction in his life.
“I hadn’t played in 18 months and obviously those clubs didn’t want anyone who was now 20 and who had just been seriously injured,” he explained in his characteristically and pleasantly soft voice. “At the time, the Ireland economy was looking really bleak, so I was just doing a government-run training program and playing in a high-level amateur league. Though I still had vague hopes of turning pro, I was really at a point where I didn’t know what to do next.”
The rest is history. Sean Kenny, then an assistant coach with St. John’s University, went home to Ireland to visit with family and friends and was asked by his good friend and Head Coach of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce College, Tod Silegy, to keep his eyes open for a striker. Kenny happened to attend an amateur-league match, as his brother was playing on the same team as young Seamus Donnelly. The latter contributed a bundle of goals in a big win and Silegy had his target man.
“Sean Kenny came up to me afterwards and asked me what age I was,” the former striker remembered. “Then he asked me if I would be interested in playing college soccer in the U.S. I told him, ‘Yes, of course,’ but didn’t really think anything would come of it. Sure enough, Tod Silegy offered me a full scholarship without ever seeing so much as a video of me. The first time I ever met him was on the first day of preseason in my freshman year. I walked into his office and he said, ‘You must be Seamus.’”
The meeting marked the beginning of a very successful Franklin Pierce career for Donnelly, who recorded 53 goals and 17 assists in just three years at the school and graduated a two-time All American and with the most tallies of all college players nationwide in his final season (27).
These accomplishments become all the more noteworthy in light of the fact that Donnelly was just about ready to abort his entire American experiment as early as in his first college year. Overwhelmed by homesickness, the then 23-year-old only stayed on because he felt he owed it to those who had believed in him enough to make it all happen—his parents, Sean Kenny and Coach Silegy.
The Irishman’s performances at Franklin Pierce did not go unnoticed. While the hard worker had a realistic shot at latching on to an MLS side in 1997, he opted for playing time instead and signed with division 3 side, the New Hampshire Phantoms, who would later serve as his springboard into the A-League. After scouting Donnelly in the division 3 semi-finals, the Hampton Roads Mariners came knocking.
“My time with the Mariners was just a big thrill,” the 38-year-old reminisced. “Getting paid for soccer and being under pressure to perform and earn a contract on a young, hungry team—I loved it. When I arrived there, they were just returning from a one-year hiatus and were a very ambitious organization, and the brand-new stadium (the Virginia Beach Sportsplex) was just being completed. I couldn’t believe I was going into work everyday into this huge, beautiful dressing room and then training on such great pitches.”
Throughout the entire experience, Donnelly once again felt he was being granted a chance he hadn’t earned and which was thus burdening him with a debt he would have to pay off through strong performances—a recurring theme throughout his career. Even when the Mariners made him team captain in his first A-League season, the then 25-year-old took the honor not as a reward for his leadership qualities, but as a call to further repay those who had taken a risk on him.
And repay them he did. After finding the net an already impressive 11 times in his first season with Hampton Roads, Donnelly was able to even improve on this count for two consecutive seasons, recording 12 and 14 goals in 1998 and 1999, respectively. But despite having quickly become one of the A-League’s rising stars, the Irishman kept putting his loyalty to the team first.
“I had some opportunities to try and make the jump to MLS,” he recalled. “For example, when DC United had players away on international duty, they wanted me to travel to Chicago with them one night, just to make sure they had enough cover. But we had a huge game against Richmond coming up, so how could I not have played in that?! I was captain of the Mariners and felt very lucky to be in that position. I couldn’t let the guys down.”
Unfortunately, the good luck was not to last for Donnelly, as the toughest stretch of his career was looming—albeit not before another short-lived highlight.
“Toward the end of the 2000 season, we all knew that the Mariners would probably be going out of business, and that’s when the Battery came in and signed me,” the Dublin native explained. “At that point, everybody on the Mariners was looking to the future and worrying that they might have to get a job outside of soccer. So, for Charleston to take a chance and bring me in, that was truly a highlight of my career. I mean, it wasn’t just any team. It was the best organization in the league.”
Once again, Donnelly felt he owed it to his coaches, front office and fans to repay them for their trust. Only this time it wasn’t meant to be, as his Battery career was riddled with injuries stemming from torn ligaments he suffered in only his third game for the new club. As a result, the Irishman only registered a single goal and a measly 43 games in his three years at Charleston, only 14 of those appearances coming as starts.
The sensitive, loyal club man Donnelly was throughout his playing career, he took his inability to produce to heart: “After feeling that I had had nothing but luck in my first seven years in the U.S., all of a sudden it was the complete opposite in Charleston. No matter what I did, nothing went my way. I had never worked so hard in my life to try and overcome injuries and score some goals, but it absolutely never worked out.”
From the beginning, Donnelly’s self-doubts were fed by his fear of disappointing the Battery fan base. He remembered a specific incident.
“Charleston had just parted with (former Dallas Burn starter) Temoc Suarez, who had been a great player for them, and so they gave me his number 7 jersey,” the 38-year-old remembered. “Then one day, after only a few weeks at the club, I was about to take a throw in during a game at Blackbaud Stadium, when a fan yelled at me, ‘Hey, Donnelly, give your jersey back to Temoc!’ I thought to myself, Gosh, this is a tough crowd.”
Little did the likable Irishman know at the time that the majority of the fans were well aware of his daily hard work and excited about his fighting spirit during the little playing time he saw.
“Seamus was a feisty winger who loved to take defenders on,” recalled Jim Gregory, former president of the Battery supporters club, the Regiment. “The fans loved his physical play, grittiness and positive attitude. No matter the score or the time on the clock, Seamus was always scrapping and fighting for every ball and every inch of space. If it hadn’t been for all his injuries, he probably would have been a regular starter. We all certainly wanted to see him on the pitch as much as possible.”
The sentiment was echoed by current Charleston Battery President, Andrew Bell: “Seamus was terrific to have around the Club. He has a great personality and brought a lot of positives. As a player, he had a knack for scoring goals and even when he was at Hampton Roads he always seemed to score one against us—that’s why we signed him in the first place. Even through all his injuries, he was always very positive and focused, just an all around good professional.”
But Donnelly’s injury issues eventually proved too much to overcome, and he left the Battery after the 2003 season with what he regarded as debt never paid off, unaware that he was soon to be disabused of his inaccurate idea of the club’s and fans’ sentiment toward their three-year player. Following one more season with the lower-division Harrisburg City Islanders, the striker finally gave in to his body and called it a career.
When talking to Seamus Donnelly, one quickly notices something pleasantly different about the 38-year-old’s way of talking. Where others involved in the game of soccer, including in the lower divisions and even at the college level, are often already well trained in truisms, clichés and standard phrases, Donnelly inserts lengthier pauses, starts entire sentences over, appears deep in thought. It’s as though he dislikes superficiality, in conversation as much as in soccer.
At each of his career stops, Donnelly invested all of his heart and energy into repaying the club and its fans. Just as he refused to take the easier, more convenient route during our interview, so he has refused to do things by halves as a player and elsewhere in life. Maybe that, rather than pure luck, is the reason opportunities have opened up for him since his arrival in America.
And maybe this character trait also explains the outpouring of support Donnelly received during the most difficult stretch of his life.
On a day in May 2007, having just exited a driveway near his home in Manheim Township, PA, the former Battery and Mariners forward was crossing the highway on his mountain bike when he was hit by a car, sending him flying into the windshield and onto the road. The accident left him with broken ribs, numerous cuts—including to his face—as well as injuries to his knee and shoulder which would later require surgery.
Most dramatically, he suffered severe damage to his back, bringing about initial worries of possible paralysis.
However, amazingly, most of the Irishman’s injuries were able to heal from rest alone, doctors even determining three months after the accident that his back would not require major surgery as originally feared. By that time, Donnelly had already returned home from the hospital’s intensive care unit and had set out on his slow road to recovery. While often exhausted and on pain-killing medication during the first few months of the process, he was soon able to bid farewell to a back brace and a walker and started regaining strength through walks around the neighborhood.
Yet, he insists none of it would have been possible without the help of his friends at the Penn Legacy youth soccer club, where he holds the position of Director of Coaching. With his family back in Ireland, and his girlfriend Kristen only coming into the picture much later, the club’s kids and their families took it upon themselves to act as Donnelly’s family during his time of need.
“It’s unbelievable how much these people did for me,” he said. “They organized a fundraiser, provided meals for me everyday for about six months and even drove me to doctor’s appointments. I’m convinced that the outpouring of care was what made me well again. It’s easy to be strong when you have an incredible support system behind you. These people were here for me on the ground and I will be eternally grateful to them. It was truly overwhelming.”
However, Donnelly was quick to add that support came from other places as well. While he recalled total strangers sometimes stopping by to check in on him after seeing him on TV, an especially moving gesture came from what he had thought of as an unlikely source.
“We learned about Seamus’ accident from a Virginia Beach (formerly Hampton Roads) fan soccer forum in June 2007,” Jim Gregory explained. “So we posted the news in the Battery fan forum, where one of our regulars, Tommy Lesesne, suggested the Battery supporters club do something to help. I was the president of the Regiment at the time, so I took the ball and ran with it.”
With the Regiment traditionally holding a raffle at every home match, its members decided to donate the proceeds from two consecutive raffles to Donnelly’s fundraiser. And, after contacting the Battery front office, Gregory was thrilled to learn the club would match whatever The Regiment raised. Instead of the roughly $100 usually collected in one raffle, the Battery fans generously donated a total of $1,000, and the same amount was added by Donnelly’s former employer.
“Keep in mind, Seamus had been away for four years,” stressed Gregory. “So this is a clear indication of the positive impact he had in Charleston. He truly is someone special.”
Reminisced a humble Donnelly: “It wasn’t just the money. They also sent me cards, scarves and even a book that they left out at the games for the supporters to sign. In the book people told me, ‘We remember you. We’re still thinking of you, number 7.’ I’m so grateful to them and I really want to get down and see everybody, but it’s almost embarrassing now because they still cared about me after four years even though I never fulfilled their expectations while I was there.
“I mean, for them to remember a player several seasons later who was injured more than he was healthy, that doesn’t say anything about me, that says a lot about them. If they had only sent an email asking how I was, I would have already been shocked. But when I got their huge package, I was speechless.”
Just like Donnelly has made his piece with the teenage driver of the car that hit him, the surprise gesture from Charleston helped him view his disappointing Battery stint in a different light as well.
“Before that, I didn’t even want to talk about my time with Charleston, because I felt like such a huge disappointment,” he offered. “But after seeing their reaction to my accident, I can now honestly say that I’m looking back at my time there with nothing but fondness. It has been a true revelation. They don’t remember me as being injury-ridden, but as a three-year player who tried to give it his all.”
In addition, the Irishman believes his experience with injury struggles from his Battery days, along with his competitive fire, have helped him in the long and hard recovery process following his accident. As a matter of fact, he noticed striking similarities between working to get back on the field and just trying to walk without pain again.
“It definitely kicks in,” he said. “You convince yourself that you’re not seriously injured and that you can do this. Every time I went back to the doctors after the accident, they told me to slow down. I’d ask them whether I could go swimming and they would say, ‘How can you get in a pool? You’re in a brace!’ So I asked whether I could get a waterproof brace and they’d be like, ‘No, you can’t, it’s too slippy!’ So I wanted slip-resistant shoes.
“That’s exactly like coming back from an injury in soccer. When I was with Charleston and had to have surgery, they warned me that it was going to increase my risk of getting arthritis down the road. All I said to that was, ‘Let’s go, can we do it today? We’re playing Richmond in two weeks, so if you say I’ll be back three weeks after the surgery, maybe I could come back a little earlier and play in that game.’”
While Donnelly was never one to defy doctors’ orders, there were times—after weeks of lying on his back and going for the occasional walk—when the competitive athlete inside him felt frustrated at scan results revealing he wasn’t ready to ditch the brace. However, the 38-year-old is convinced moments like that ultimately only motivated him more to do what was necessary to recover.
Today, two and half years after the accident, Donnelly’s back is stable enough that the Dublin native does not have to worry about re-injuring it through everyday activities such as bike-riding or climbing a stairway. Even so, some of the damage will of course remain, leading to occasional pain and sourness that Donnelly refers to as “manageable.”
Perhaps the greatest effect of the accident has been on the former striker’s outlook on life. “It has changed my perspective,” he said. “After going through this experience, it really doesn’t matter now if there’s traffic or if somebody is late for a meeting. I didn’t have an epiphany or anything like that, but it did make me realize that some things just aren’t that important. For example, I now see that my struggles in Charleston really weren’t as bad as I thought back then. You simply can’t have good luck all the time.”
Nonetheless, Donnelly has found it hard to follow the Battery all too closely since hanging up the boots.
“I do a little bit, but probably not as much as I should,” he admitted. “And the reason is that when I had to give up playing, I really had to give it up. I never even played indoor or pick-up games after that, because it reminded me too much of what I didn’t have anymore. Watching others play at a high level is just as difficult—especially after having to watch so many games from the Battery bench. Of course I always know how the Battery are doing, but I’ve made a conscious decision not to put myself through the pain of attending games.”
At some point, this conscious decision might clash with Donnelly’s current career path, as he made 2009 his first year as an assistant coach with Pennsylvania’s Elizabethtown College and is looking to continue along the road of coaching at a higher level. The Irishman admits it won’t always be easy.
“The hardest thing is that you’re almost involved, but then you’re really not,” he said. “It’s simply not you out there. But at the same time, it’s also better than playing in many ways. First of all, you can’t get injured. And second, it’s great working with young people who really want to learn and work hard. You really do see the progression in them. Originally, I only looked at coaching as something to do until I figured everything out. But at some point I realized I truly love it.’”
And Donnelly is serious about pursuing a career in his new-found passion, as he looks at his Elizabethtown opportunity as a first step toward getting more involved in the college game and at some point hopefully taking on a head coaching job. At the same time, he is eager to stress the joy of working for Penn Legacy, one of the premier youth clubs on the East Coast.
“Two years ago, I never thought I’d be involved in college coaching and now I’d love to try and work at that level,” Donnelly offered. “So who knows what else might follow. I just want to prepare myself to be the best coach I possibly can.
“I have my own style and I’ve learned so much from the coaches I’ve played under. At the same time, I’m still a million miles away from coaching in college, let alone at the pro level, so I’m really looking to get more experience. Honestly, though, I also really want to stay with Penn Legacy and get to continue the work that I’ve started.”
When asked which of his coaches he had learned the most from, the former striker then suddenly realized he had withheld from me another positive from his injury-riddled stint in Charleston.
“Chris Ramsey,” he responded, without having to think for a split second. “I sometimes talk to my former Battery team-mates who have gone into coaching as well, and we realize how many of the things we use with our older teams come from him. For example, one day he showed me a book in which he had all the training session planned out and where he would be taking notes after each one. That’s when it hit me how much preparation goes into the daily training. He has really shown me what it takes to be a top coach.”
As it turned out, talking about coaching plans and Chris Ramsey in such quick succession had triggered a thought process in Seamus Donnelly’s mind that was closely tied to the recurring theme of his playing career.
“You know,” he said after a lengthier pause, “after coming to the U.S., I was always trying to give something back for the opportunities I was given. And the only time I felt I really let everybody down was during my time with the Battery. So if somewhere down the road I could coach them, and maybe even win a championship, that would really be full circle. Maybe then I could say, ‘See, I’ve finally given something back to you.’”
And with a wink in his voice, he added, “Don’t tell Mike Anheuser yet, though. That’s more down the road.”
Looking at where Seamus Donnelly’s American journey has taken him over the past 17 years—both on the field and off—one would almost be surprised not to see this opportunity granted to him as well. Until then, the Irishman can comfort himself with all he has accomplished so far.
“I have loved every minute of my time in the U.S.,” he concluded. “I honestly wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t go to a different college or play for different teams. And I love my youth club here, which signed me even though at the time I had no idea what a Director of Coaching did. It seems like whatever I was doing, there was always someone willing to take a chance on me.”
One cannot but have feelings of sympathy for a man whose humble nature has him believing all good that ever happened to him was a result of pure luck.
The truth? A cliché of the valid kind. What goes around comes around.
Gunnar Berndt is a sports-writer based in Düsseldorf, Germany; you can contact Gunnar at gb@gun-soccer.com.
This article was also published on www.Soccer365.com.
|
|
|
|
Seamus Donnelly
|
|
Seamus Donnelly
|
|
Seamus Donnelly
|
|
Seamus Donnelly
|
|
Seamus Donnelly
|
|
|
)
)
)
)
)