Down the bottle, raise awareness

COLIN REGAN never expected to be in this job. On February 21, 2010, his mind was only on football as he jogged out onto the pitch for the first run out of the year with Melvin Gaels, a day after firing 1-1 for the Leitrim senior footballers in a league game against Kilkenny.

But a freak accident left his knee bust and brought his football career screeching to a halt. Four months laid up on the couch gave him time to think and he decided to move away from a journalism career that had seen him involved with the Leitrim Post, Donegal News and Irish Voice in Boston, while also doing a stint as communication manager for the North West Simon Community.

He went back to hitting the books in UCD, studying for a Masters in Sports Management and by the time he handed in his thesis on a Friday afternoon in July, he had applied, interviewed and been appointed for a job to start the following Monday morning. And that’s how he has become the national co-ordinator of the GAA’s ASAP (Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention) Programme.