Neil O'Donoghue, middle, at Round Towers GAA club in April 1985, with committee members Liam Molloy, Sean McAuley, Bernard Cronin and Tommy Keogh.
By John Harrington
This evening at the Round Towers GAA club in Clondalkin, prodigal son Neil O’Donoghue will return to his GAA family.
The occasion will mark the launch of ‘Corny: The last Irishman in the NFL’, which tells the story of O’Donoghue’s remarkable sporting journey from Gaelic footballer to American footballer.
As the title suggests, Neil ‘Corny’ O’Donoghue is the last Irish-born player to play in the NFL, and the four-part podcast which tells that unlikely tale is a riveting listen from start to finish.
It’s very much a labour of love for producer Lochlainn Harte, who first explored the idea of telling O’Donoghue’s story over 10 years ago and has now finally brought the project to fruition.
“It tells his story from how his parents met and then his upbringing in Clondalkin with the Round-Towers, that takes up episode one,” Harte told GAA.ie.
“It goes into his soccer scholarship to the States. And then it goes into him getting his football scholarship in the States and then progresses to him getting drafted to the Buffalo Bills, getting dropped, then getting drafted into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and having a really good two seasons and then all of a sudden being dropped again.
“He ends up in Florida working on high rise buildings and gets a phone-call from Jim Hanafin, the St. Louis Cardinals coach, asking him to try out.
“Neil hadn't kicked a ball in about six months and was pitched against their current kicker, a guy called Steve Little, who was an All American kicker but under severe pressure because the previous kicker had been with the Cardinals for about 18 years, so the pressure was on to fill his boots.
"What transpired was that Neil beat Steve Little in the kicking competition and was picked as their kicker for the season.
“And that night Steve Little went out and crashed his car and was paralysed from the neck down for life. Neil knew the pressure that guy was under and had to make the decision then is this worth it? I've just seen this guy get crucified by the team and what it led to.
“But he had a close connection with Jim Hanafin and so decided to give it a go and ended up playing for five years with the Cardinals.”
Neil O'Donoghue is the last Irish-man to have played in the NFL.
O’Donoghue was always regarded as something of a novelty in the NFL, and not just because he was Irish.
He was also the tallest kicker in the history of the game, and his Gaelic football style of kicking the ball also caused a stir.
“If you look back at the footage, In the NFL they used to all kick with their big toe,” says Harte.
“They used to kick it dead on. Whereas because Neil came from a Gaelic football background and was hitting it with the inside of his foot and was nicknamed 'The Sidewinder' because it was a new style of kicking and people weren't used to it.
“Nowadays they like their kickers to be a bit shorter because of the time it takes their leg to get from back to front is a few split seconds quicker which counts, whereas Neil is the tallest kicker in NFL history. He's six foot six so the length of time it took him to kick from back foot to through the ball, nowadays it would be considered very long.
“But he was capable of kicking 60 yarders which back then was nearly unheard of. He was regarded as an amazing long kicker and was drafted in the NFL fifth round which for a kicker was huge. Kickers are usually the last position to be picked.
“There's a quote in the podcast that kickers are like grass, they're everywhere, which is what one of his coaches said to him. He wasn't really loved by coaches until Jim Hanafin took him under his wing.
“At the time kickers were just dropped and picked up. They weren't really considered part of the main team sometimes. But that changed. Neil ended up becoming tied as the highest points scorer in Cardinals history. He broke the cardinals record in his final season.
“He's still the fifth highest points scorer in Cardinals history, so that gives you an idea of how many kicks he did make, and it’s all the more remarkable because he came from a background where he had no coaching.”
Neil O’Donoghue after captaining Round Towers under-13s to victory in the South County League/Paddy Barrett Cup competition in Croke Park, 1965.
O’Donoghue ended up settling in Florida after his NFL career ended, but he never lost his connection to home or Gaelic games.
“The podcast starts and ends with GAA basically,” says Harte. “The career he had was the pinnacle of NFL playing in front of 100,000 people in the stadium, but he would tell you that his greatest win of all time was when he won U-13s with Round Towers GAA.
“It was against Ballyfermot and he says they were intimidated going out there but they won the match and they had a Pipe Band on the street when they came back to Clondalkin and for him it's still the best win of his life. That's how much he loves GAA, it was his big sporting passion, really.
“The NFL was a career, but Gaelic football with Round Towers was the sporting passion.”
You can listen to Corny: Corny - The Last Irishman in the NFL at the below links
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/corny-the-last-irishman-in-the-nfl/id1717755964
GoLoud: https://www.goloudplayer.com/podcasts/1052
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hKVplv3caentpYVa7cowg