Whether competing in the Olympics, smashing track records as a college All-American or winning kudos on his job, Niall Anthony O’Shaughnessy considered it all in a day’s work.
In the 1970s, he became the second-fastest man in the world running the mile and was credited with putting the University of Arkansas track and field program on the map.
After college, the environmental engineer was named Arkansas employee of year by Gov. Bill Clinton.
Through it all, the unassuming O’Shaughnessy kept a low profile about his successes and focused on helping others to achieve their goals, friends and family said.
“He was not one to toot his horn and did not want anyone else to toot his horn,” said his wife Marcia O’Shaughnessy. “He made the extraordinary ordinary. He just felt it was his job to do his best at whatever he was doing.”
O’Shaughnessy died of brain cancer at his Milton home on Sept. 16 at the age of 59. His funeral was Friday at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Alpharetta.
Born on Nov. 23, 1955, in Adare, County Limerick, Ireland, O’Shaughnessy was the third of eight children. His father was a veterinary surgeon. His mother competed in horse jumping.
While attending boarding school in Ireland, O’Shaughnessy became a high school track standout in the 800-meter and the mile.
His track feats caught the eye of University of Arkansas track coach and Ireland native John McDonnell, who offered the 17-year-old a scholarship in 1973.
O’Shaughnessy became the first in a line of great distance runners who helped make Arkansas a national track and field powerhouse with 41 NCAA titles.
“He was the man who got it all started,” said McDonnell, who coached the Razorbacks to 40 national titles before retiring in 2008. “He was a running billboard for our program. He shined a bright light on Arkansas track.”
As a freshman in 1974, O’Shaughnessy became the university’s first individual Southwest Conference champion. The Razorback track program also got a boost when he beat the world record holder in the indoor mile in 1977. The six-time All-American made the cover of Track and Field News after nearly breaking the world record with his indoor mile run of 3:55.40.
His indoor-mile time of 3:55.4 is the ninth-fastest in NCAA history and remains an Arkansas record. His NCAA record of 2:04.5 in the 1,000 meters still stands today. He also was the European indoor-mile record holder.
“The thing about Niall is that he was honest and down to earth. He never changed. He was a star student and a star athlete, and I wanted to be just like him,” said former Razorback track great Frank O’Mara, who followed in O’Shaughnessy’s footsteps from Limerick to Arkansas.
O’Shaughnessy represented Ireland in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, where he ran the 800 and 1,500 meters. Although he qualified for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, he did not compete out of respect for the U.S. boycott of the Games.
In 1994, he was inducted into the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor. In November, he will be posthumously inducted into the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame.
After receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Arkansas, O’Shaughnessy married his college sweetheart Marcia McKinney in 1980.
While working for the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology in the 1980s, former Gov. Clinton named him Arkansas State Employee of the Year.
In 1988, he moved to Montgomery, Ala., to work as an environmental engineer specializing in water management for CH2M Hill, an international consulting engineering firm. The company transferred him to Atlanta in 1995. In 2010, he took a job at WestRock in Norcross, where he worked until 2014.
“He was extremely smart, but never acted that way. He was very humble and gracious,” said his former boss Nina Butler, chief sustainability officer for WestRock. “He was always respectful of people and tried to do the right thing for our company.”
When not working, O’Shaughnessy enjoyed canoeing, camping and fishing and taking annual trips to Ireland to see family and friends. He became an American citizen in the 1980s.
In addition to his wife, O’Shaughnessy is survived by his sons Thomas and Stephen O’Shaughnessy of Milton; his mother Angela O’Shaughnessy of Adare; brothers Peter O’Shaughnessy and Barry O’Shaughnessy of Adare, David O’Shaughnessy of Boston, John O’Shaughnessy of Old Saybrook, Conn., and Mark O’Shaughnessy of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and sisters Suzanne Scalagione of Frankfurt, Germany, and Fiona Welch of Warrenton, Va.
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