Focused Dublin star Nolan rises to another challenge

Steve Redgrave. Wasim Akram. Scott Verplank.

Just some of the people who have enjoyed long and fruitful careers in sports despite having been diagnosed with diabetes. It’s a list that defender Kevin Nolan can now be added to after his and Dublin’s successful league campaign.

At the fag end of 2011, he was given the news. The year had been a good one. A great one. A regular starter under Pat Gilroy, he more than earned his Leinster and All-Ireland medals.

It was more than a year later before he finally began to get to grips with the condition and by then the Dublin revolution spun through another number of cycles.

Another All-Ireland was bagged last year. Nolan spent the majority of the summer looking on from the bench.

“Last year was fairly tough at times and sort of a change of mentality as well helped... not to fully overcome but sort of control the illness, because it could always be worse in my own eyes. It doesn’t matter how bad it is, I feel it could always be worse,” he said.

His relationship with diabetes is impressive. Staying mum was the easier thing to do. Dressing rooms and contact sports don’t lend themselves to expressions of weakness but Nolan ignored all that. He embraces the role of ambassador for Diabetes Ireland in the hope it will encourage kids with the condition that it’s not the end of your sporting dreams.

For Nolan, it has been a case of small changes. He eats gluten-free now, checks his insulin in the days before a game, wears flip flops in the shower as diabetics are particularly prone to infections around the feet.

“From what I’ve heard speaking to the doctors, and I’ve only had it two and a half years, it’s mainly if your diabetes isn’t controlled properly, if it’s fluctuating too much, your blood sugars. Once you keep it under control, you can live a life like anyone else.

“And again, playing football, there’s not too many ill-disciplined players. It’s all organised, and routine is a big thing and being a teacher as well, you have to be organised, it’s just another thing to make sure is under control.”

Seventy minutes of football isn’t any easier or harder than it used to be. It is the post-game period when he has had to adapt. Rest and recovery takes a tad longer than for everyone else, for example, and testing of blood sugar levels is a must.

Not that he has it under control just yet. The weather can affect it, too. Hotter days, for example, and he is looking into the legalities of playing with a pump that constantly feeds insulin into the body via a drip.

“I’d be a very positive person,” he says while admitting he had his low points last year. “It’s a challenge I just have to overcome. If I get in the starting 15 it’s because, in the management’s eyes, I improved as a player.

“If I can benefit the team in any way, whether it’s five minutes at the end of the game or 25 minutes at the start, you’re doing everything to improve the team. At the end of the day, it’s the team that wins, not the individual.”