Solace can be found in surprising circumstances. We are often told sport is a great distraction from the stresses of life, but that seems to trivialise sport. A distraction is a common occurrence; our generation needs no assistance in being distracted.
Last Monday Ryan McHugh faced the press - daily and Sunday papers, online media, and radio - as part of AIB’s launch of the club championship. He then went to meet his father, Martin, and headed up the road to the wake of former Donegal goalkeeping coach Pat Shovelin who, at 41, had passed away after a battle with cancer.
It’s hard to know how much a distraction sport would be for them. They knew Pat through sport. He was a coach when Ryan first came into the squad.
After he left, Shane Dowling entered to face the press. His club, Na Piarsaigh, lost 62-year-old Liam Kennedy earlier this year. He was club stalwart, and Shane articulated the effect his loss has had:
Liam was a teacher in Ardscoil Rís. To me he was a teacher and a friend but to Podge [Kennedy, Na Piarsaigh player], he was a father and he was so fit and healthy. From the day we were told that he was sick to eight weeks later he was dead, it’s very scary. Liam didn’t drink, recently, and he was the last man to leave the pub, dropping lads home.
You’re still waiting for him to walk in the door. Tis weird, very weird. Even after the county final to see his family on the pitch brought a tear to my eye. It’s sad, especially when you have success, that he should be there congratulating him [Podge] and he’s not.
Shane had just won a county title. He’d achieved magnificent success in his sport, and yet his mind wasn’t distracted from life’s sorrow.
Cora Staunton is also someone for whom tragedy and sport have had to co-exist.
It has been a phenomenal few days for Staunton - even by her lofty standards. She announced a move to Ladies AFL side Great Western Sydney Giants las week, and then landed 4-13 for her club Carnacon during their LGFA Connacht final draw with Kilkerrin/Clonberne on Sunday.
There are very few Irish sports people universally recognised by their first name: Roy, Paulie, Wes, Katie, Cora. Sport has been a part of her life from an inconceivably early age. At 13 she made her debut for the senior Mayo ladies team. Then at 16, after a prolonged battle with cancer, her mother passed away.
So what role did sport play? A distraction?
It’s a huge tool to deal with it (death) because you have people around you. I was just gone 16, people within sport - coaches, friends - they were people who can guide you through difficult times. It is a huge distraction going off to play football and trying not to think about what has happened, but it’s also people helping you to cope with what you’ve gone through.
The importance of these people cannot be understated. The loss of a parent can have a detrimental effect, it opens you up to things. As Cora explained, it exposes you:
Because of it you’re easy, it’s a flip of a coin, it could go one way or another way. You could go down a dark road and be taken to places where you might never have turned out as you are, or have the success of being a sportsperson. It’s a flip of a coin, it could easily have gone the other way.
Cora elected to carry it forward with her - learn from it - digest her grief and use that experience for a greater good.
There’s been girls since then on our team that have lost a parent or whatever and I was very young and now I guide the younger people through and that’s probably the reason I stayed on. I loved the game, but I probably stayed on the last few years to guide the younger girls through our team and to help them have a bit of success. To build that kind of mentality within them.
When I was young players did that for me, that’s hugely important. Sports plays a huge part in all aspects of life and helps you deal with whatever problems you have. It is a distraction but it’s so much more than a distraction; it’s a way of life. It gives you so many skills and stuff that you’re not going to get if you don’t play sport.
And so it was that Cora assumed a responsibility. It’s not just a lead scorer responsibility, a role that has seen her amass 59 goals and 483 points for her county in championship football. It’s an off-field responsibility, a responsibility most would argue she doesn’t have to assume:
I don’t want to leave football and Mayo football go downhill and not do well. You have to build the next generation. It’s not just about building their skills in football; you have to be very mentally strong to play it.
For Cora, it all boils down to the fundamentals: her roots, the club, that is what made her who she is today - a duty mingled with pride.
The club has made me what I am, that’s where I’ll start and where I’ll finish. Even in the height of the season with Mayo, I always make it my business to go to club training. I might not train, or I mightn’t do something, but I always make it my business because it’s very important for the other girls. You have to drive standards in your club.
Her's is a life dedicated to football and moulded by it. While a season in Australia, in a rapidly growing league, is coming, it arrives at the twilight of her career.
Women’s AFL is set for expansion in 2019 and 2020. It’ll inevitably go full-time, offering women the new prospect of a professional career playing sport. That is an enticing prospect for any athlete. It is the reason cricketers and netballers have elected to move down under, with the hope of making a career in the AFL.
Yet when quizzed on the possibility of a tinge of regret at the opportunity coming late in her career, Staunton is adamant in her response - an instant and resounding "no".
I’m so passionate about the GAA and love the GAA. I was never going to leave it. It’s just happening at the right time, I’ve had opportunities when I was younger to go to America and probably do financially well during the summer when I was in college, but I never left because I didn’t want to leave Mayo, so I don’t think I could ever leave for a long season like that.
Cora rises and leaves to mingle with the 500 children who’ve travelled to Croke Park for the GAA Youth forum. She regales them with tales of playing alongside Alan Dillon at underage level and winning four All-Ireland inter-county medals. The next day she goes out and kicks 4-13 for her club in a provincial final.
The ease with which she not only plays but talks about sport paints a picture of a life where football is not separate but a significant part of it. Sport doesn’t have to be a distraction, in fact it can be so much more than that.
Cora was speaking at the GAA youth Forum supported by Sky Sports. The #GAAyouth Forum is designed by young players, for young players from the GAA, LGFA and the Camogie Association.
