Donegal boss, Jim McGuinness, lifts lid on his battle with self doubt

Jim McGuinness revealed he had to overcome crippling self-doubt and a severe lack of confidence to become an All-Ireland-winning manager.

The Donegal boss’s self-esteem was so poor he almost quit his sports science course in IT Tralee on his very first day there in 1997. Then aged 24, McGuinness had just completed his Leaving Cert a few months earlier at Donegal VEC in Letterkenny. He had gone there to take his first steps towards becoming a secondary school PE teacher — “and have summers off to focus on football” — but on arriving in Tralee had been overcome by nerves.

“The very first day I went to Tralee my self-confidence was at an all-time low. I think it was because I was a wee bit older and the kids — let’s call them that, 17, 18, coming out of Leaving Cert — were all buzzing about and everyone was chatting, ‘where are you from?’, so on and so forth.