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A New Lease on Life (2001–2003) “It was like I hadn’t looked in the mirror. I was like, ‘My God, where have all of the years gone? I’m an old guy now.’” —John McDonnell It was a cold morning on January 14, 2001 when John and Ellen McDonnell awoke at 6:00 a.m. to get ready for Sunday mass. As he began preparing himself, John immediately felt something awry. “My stomach was burning, and I thought it was indigestion, so I took Alka Seltzer, but it made it worse,” remembered John. “I was sitting on the end of the bed, and all of a sudden I started feeling cold. The next thing I felt was something running on my face. I was pouring sweat. I told Ellen I need to get to a hospital. She called 911 and put on her jacket and drove me to the emergency room. When we arrived, the medics were ready for us and put me in a wheelchair right away. Then they gave me morphine, and next thing I remembered I was in a hospital bed.” When he awoke two hours later, John learned he had suffered a heart attack. “I was fortunate because I could have been somewhere on my ranch with nowhere to go to get to a hospital,” said John. “I had none of the symptoms that cause a heart attack such as high cholesterol or blood pressure so they said it was caused by stress.” As John lay staring at the ceiling of his hospital room at the Washington Regional Medical Center, he found a new perspective on life had been violently thrust upon him. “It was a reality check,” said McDonnell. “Suddenly all of those national championships didn’t mean much. It made me realize there are more important things in life. You could say it was a blessing in disguise.” The stress John felt throughout the process of raising money for the indoor facility was only exacerbated by his already elevated heart rate before meets. “I was always a type A personality, and before races, I’d be standing there and my heart would start pounding in my chest, and I’d have to take a few deep breaths,” said John. “So they gave me a medication to keep calm. I tell you, when you start doing that, it’s probably time to get the hell out of coaching.” 310 13 Though John never gave serious consideration to retirement at that point in time, he did remain in the hospital for three days as the doctors put a stent in his heart. When he was finally released, it was three weeks before he returned, during which time assistant coach Dick Booth took over in his absence. His daughter, Heather, received a call about the emergency at her sorority house at the University of Texas from her brother, Sean. “He was like fifteen at the time, and he never called me, so I knew something was wrong,” said Heather. “I had just gotten back to Austin four days earlier, and I could tell my father was a little on edge. He wasn’t as energetic as usual. I remembered thinking I should have waited.” When she finally reached her father by telephone in his hospital bed, John was in good spirits. “The first thing he said when he picked up the phone was ‘How are you doing’ in Gaelic,” said Heather. “It was a private joke. He was lying in bed after a heart attack, and he was very light hearted. That was pretty emotional.” Though track and field understandably took a back seat for a few weeks as John recovered from a life-threatening ailment, the scare did not completely squelch his competitive instincts. “He won a water bottle each week for being the person that did the best in rehab,” remembered Ellen. “They wanted to make him watch these movies about heart attacks, which were very depressing. He said, ‘No, I know what I have to do.’ He was only in rehab for a few weeks.” Upon being discharged from rehab, John began eating differently, even though the heart attack was not related to cholesterol or blood pressure, and took medication to relieve some of the stress he experienced before races. “He didn’t let the pressure get to him as much,” said Ellen. “I would see him get worked up but not as much, and I could see he had calmed down...

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