From an Orphanage to Greatest Show on Earth
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Weekend Sport Irish Examiner Saturday, 16.02.2019 26 THE BIG INTERVIEW THE CATHAL DENNEHY INTERVIEW From a very challenging childhood to the Olympic Games, and the pursuit of his long-lost mother, life has taken some strange twist and turns for Shane Healy. But the 50-year-old is now ready to write a new chapter From an orphanage to greatest show on earth e finds a way. He has heartfelt message. dad’s best swing. A phone call from the Keen to move on to a university, he to. Doesn’t have any “I said, ‘look, Mum, I know you didn’t principal had been his undoing, and Healy called renowned distance-running guru other choice. Never get on well with Dad, but you brought me was soon switched to a school in Harold’s Joe Vigil, who was then head coach at did. into this world. I’d love to see you and my Cross, where he began to thrive. Adams State in Alamosa, Colorado. Vigil Sitting in the sister Lorraine again.’” But a move to Whitehall a couple of laughed him off the phone when Healy kitchen of his He never heard back, and there’s a re- years later saw him lose interest in told him his mile best was just 4:17, but the home in Co signed acceptance in his words this week. education, Healy dropping out of school at Irishman kept calling, kept working, kept Louth, Shane “My mother would be 80 now, I don’t know 13 and working various jobs throughout improving, until he was eventually offered Healy’s face if she’s still alive,” he says. “I don’t know.” his teens. a place. shifts from If that wasn’t enough tumult for a young At the age of 18 he met an American Those first few weeks, he trained so smiling to solemn as he prepares to dive child to bear, not long after Healy’s father couple — Ryan and Sheri Roberts — in hard that he began to urinate blood, but into a chaotic, callousing past. The lush took off to Manchester to find work, taking abar at Harold’s Cross, who told him to get his improvement was rapid, relentless. In Hgreen hills around Ravensdale give this oldest son Brian with him and placing in touch if he ever made it to Florida, an 1995 Healy was running 3:39 for 1500m, just place a Tuscan feel, a serene setting in Shane in Dublin’s Goldenbridge invitation he accepted, rocking up to their one agonising second shy of the Olympic which to unspool a story of an ultimate Orphanage. home in Tampa, Florida a few months qualifying standard. scrapper. “It was tough,” says Healy. “It wasn’t later. But he felt like he had reached a plateau, Fifty years. Fifty fun, ferocious years, easy, but I could understand it.” Not wanting to overstay his welcome, returning to Ireland to find a complete and Healy takes you through them the Each weekend his aunt Noreen would he soon set off hitchhiking across the lack of support for athletes of that level. A only way he knows how: At breakneck drive to Dublin to take him out for a couple country, sleeping rough at the side of chance encounter with Eamonn Coghlan speed. His accent — a curious blend of of days, but Healy feared the worst when, highways. “One time I got a lift with a big at a road race the following year would American extravagance and Irish lilt — is on one particular Saturday, she never guy in Alabama or Tennessee,” he says. “I ultimately change his fate, Coghlan the first giveaway to his vagabond past, a turned up. “She had a massive brain dozed off in his car and woke up with him agreeing to coach Healy on the condition way of life he explains through techniques hemorrhage,” he says. “She died at 37.” feeling my leg. I freaked out and he goes, that he did everything he was told. that could best be described as Healyisms. Healy’s father returned from England ‘oh, would you like a blowjob?’ I said, ‘stop Early in 1996 he moved into digs with a Like his attitude to a turbulent child- for the funeral and decided to relocate Shane Healy the car.’ Lucky enough he left me out.” couple in Fir House, Bernard and Ann hood, which saw him ricochet around back to Dublin, taking him out of the or- running in the Going through Texas he was picked up Somers, and reached a new level of fitness Dublin like a pinball. phanage and settling in Rathmines where semi-finals of the by a musician who was more formal with through long, lung-bursting runs in the “We were survivors,” he says. “Growing he enrolled in school at Richmond Hill. men’s 1,500m at his offer. “He found me very attractive and Dublin Mountains. While racing in up in the ’80s, we were hardcore. Today, “I absolutely hated it,” he says. “There said, ‘I’ll look after you for the next few that spring, word came through that kids need lifts 100 metres down the road.” was lots of bullying, lots of scumbags.” the 1996 Atlanta years if you’ll be my lover.’ I said, ‘no, Bernard, one of his biggest supporters, Or his attitude to injuries, even now, One day, after witnessing one of his Olympics Games. you’re okay.’” had died from a heart attack. “I went on with his hair long turned a salt-and- classmates get a particularly brutal A drifter, Healy Days later, standing by the side of the more determined than ever,” he says. pepper grey: “I get loads of ailments but I beating, Healy decided he’d had enough. “I accepted an offer road in Houston, he felt a sense of dread as At that point, Niall Bruton and Marcus run through them, even though it hurts said, f*** this, I went on the hop, mitching, of $50 by a coach the mother of all storms loomed ahead, but O’Sullivan had already qualified for the like f***.” doing bob-a-jobs.” in Canada to run a Healy was rescued in the nick of time by a Atlanta Olympics, leaving one spot on the Or his philosophy on racing: “You’re He was 10-years-old, and would steal trucker who took him all the way to San Irish team in the men’s 1500m. “I said my better off running up the front with pride newspapers from bundles outside shops, mile, sending him Diego, where he trained to be an name is on that f****** ticket,” says Healy. than running at the back in pain.” selling them half- price to motorists at on a different life electrician. It never quite worked out, so His final chance to qualify was in We could go on, but his is a life that can’t traffic lights, the start of an adolescence path: ‘That’s he then flew to Hawaii, working as a Madrid, a race Healy got into by harassing be condensed into one neat cluster or sexy spent scrapping for survival. A few where I found the waiter for a year before returning to Cali- the meeting director with phone calls, who soundbite. A tale of toughness: the months later, he came home one day to American dream.’ fornia, and eventually back to Ireland. eventually relented and said he could run of early abandonment and loss, the pursuit find his father asking how school went. But with the economy on its knees, if he found his own way there. In oppress- of late attachment and gain. Aimless ad- “Great,” said Healy, who barely drew Picture: Healy set off again in 1989, hitchhiking ive heat, Healy smashed his personal best, venture, stubborn survival and an unwa- breath before he felt the full force of his Billy Stickland through France and Spain and eventually running 3:36.58 to secure a place in Atlan- vering willingness to roll the dice out into landing work on the catchments on the ta. “The happiest day of my life,” he says. the world and see what it brought back. “I coast of Gibraltar. Six weeks later, he walked out in front of took a chance all my life,” he says. “You He found a way out by working as a 85,000 people for the Olympic semi-final, just have to have the courage, the guts.” deckhand on a yacht headed for Guade- watching trackside as Michael Johnson’s loupe, keeping watch through the night for gold spikes whirred past en route to a 200m t’s best to start here, with a super-tankers and passing the afternoons world record. What was Healy thinking moment that set off a butterfly playing chess with Danish stewardesses. about in that moment? he may never fully grasp, at least At the end of the trip the captain gave “Shit,” he says. “Don’t run bad in front in the absence of any him $1500, which Healy used to travel of this crowd.” Having advanced from his closure. through the Caribbean to Canada, which heat in fifth place, he bowed out in the Shane Healy is four-years-old, proved far too cold for his liking. He sneak- semi-final after finishing 11th, a sense and after continued fighting ed across the US border into Washington, of pride lingering after arriving at his between his parents he awakes made his way to California, and used some ultimate destination. one morning to find his mother creative licence to enrol at Contra Costa “I want to get the message across to has left their home in Community College, just outside San young people,” he says.