Gambling addiction. Pornography. All-Star nominations. All-Ireland winners' medals.
Every player that makes a championship starting 15 has been on a journey. A journey filled with sacrifice and hardship. Some have come back from career-threatening injury, doubt or loss of form. Most have sacrificed endless hours with family and friends and have pushed themselves as hard as they can, physically and emotionally. But few will have come as far as Cathal McCarron has.
When he lined out for Tyrone in their opening game of the 2015 Championship against Donegal, it symbolised far more for McCarron than simply lacing up a pair of boots. It represented a milestone in a journey that had taken him into hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt, lost relationships and a place darker than most of us can imagine.
October 2013 saw McCarron leave these shores for London to treat a gambling addiction that had been eating away at him for years. This was after a year when McCarron had somehow managed to put his off-field problems aside when he pulled on the white jersey of Tyrone to the extent that he was nominated for an Allstar award at the end of the year.
But the next year McCarron would be conspicuous by his absence from Tyrone. He left for London at the end of 2013 in an effort to resolve his gambling problems, and fellow players and manager Mickey Harte hoped that he could resolve them. But April 2014, and news of McCarron featuring in an explicit pornographic film, suggested that the Dromore man was still struggling with his demons.
The tough combat of gaelic football no doubt provided a refuge from his issues, an escape hatch of sorts. Niall McNamee and Oisin McConville have both commented on the release the sport provided them with, a time when they were free from their addictions and worries and the only thing they had to be concerned with was sticking a ball over a bar. One imagines it resembled a valve for McCarron as well, and perhaps still does. He excelled last year in the Red Hands' run to the All-Ireland semi-final and again received an Allstar nomination.
McCarron's tale is admittedly fascinating but seemed destined to remain untold to the wider public. He hasn't spoken publicly about his struggles since he returned from England and had seemed content to focus on stifling nippy corner forwards. GAA fans respected this and gradually his past faded into distant memory, perhaps just the refuge of occasional sledging in Tyrone club football (though one would hope otherwise).
But yesterday McCarron revealed via his Twitter account that his story will be told with the help of Christy O'Connor, one of Ireland's top sportwriters and author of 'The Club'.
Delighted to be releasing my Autobiography later this year. @chrisocfl #Simon&Schuster #Recovery pic.twitter.com/UgdVA581Lq
— Cathal McCarron (@mc_carron1) June 20, 2016
The book's blurb describes it as recounting McCarron's "extremely dark secret, a gambling addiction that cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds, endless relationships and, almost, his life". It goes on:
The illness took such grip on McCarron that he was forced to leave the country but the addiction led him down an even darker path and into a world of total depravity where he was willing to do anything for money. 'Out Of Control' is a sports story unlike any other, a tale of success, lies, deceit, theft, recovery, rehabilitation and, ultimately, redemption.
In an era where there is so much conversation surrounding inter-county players' lifestyles and whether there is too much demanded of them, the story of a player for whom everything was falling apart off the pitch but yet all coming together on it is a tale of an intriguing paradox. John Leonard's recent book 'Dub Sub Confidential' is a deeply interesting account of a man who struggled to balance off-field issues with a burning ambition to achieve success with Dublin. Leonard lost that battle by his own admission but maintained throughout that the GAA were always there for him when he needed it.
McCarron looks like he is winning that battle, and is taking a brave move by exposing himself like this while still a player.
No doubt the GAA community will be there for him too, whether he needs it or not.
