At some point in Cork, in the not-too-distant future, he’ll be known as an Inbetweener, just like Ciáran Whelan was the first to confess he was one in Dublin: a fine player and even better servant, whose career happened to fall in that stretch where such a proud county went so long without winning an All-Ireland.
But while he missed out on that Celtic Cross and while he still misses the buzz of a week such as this, Stephen McDonnell is wise and serene enough to know that he gained a lot more than he lost along that journey, that it will stand to him for as long as he breathes, and that the 15-year-old him could never have envisaged where he now is in life.
Of course as a teenager he aspired to play for Cork; with his family home looking onto the Glen field where he, as well as Ring, sported and played, how could he not? But to have the intelligence, emotional and otherwise, to carve out such a lengthy county career and above all the professional career he now has as a management consultant, coaching the CEOs and leadership teams of multi-million-euro companies?
Everything in his environment was telling him that was an impossibility.
He went to a local Deis school where only one Leaving Cert student sat honours Maths. The overwhelmed staff were as much working in the domain of crowd control as they were teaching, and McDonnell at one stage was amongst those causing them trouble. In his mid-teens he was suspended after getting into a scuffle. Years later when he was an ambassador for Sky Sports, visiting schools like his alma mater, he’d often tell the story of that fight so that they might not have to.
“Basically, there was this lad who could be a bit of a bully and there was some messing going on — he took my bag and threw it up on the roof, so I took his and threw it up there too. He didn’t like that, so he gave me a push and I pushed back, and next thing it’s going around that there’s a fight after school.
“So before I know it, the bell goes and there are people waiting outside the classroom because they think there’s going to be a fight, they want there to be a fight, they want that bit of entertainment.
“So they follow you, and because he’s walking just in front of you, they follow him, and a massive circle forms outside the school.
“Now I know he didn’t want to fight me, I didn’t want to fight him, and I knew even then the bravest thing to do in that moment would have been to do what I wanted to, which was just go home. But neither of us had the courage to do that.”
Eventually a teacher came along to break it up, presenting McDonnell with the chance to bolt for home. But a bit before he arrived at the house, he stopped and looked down at his knuckles.
“I just stayed there for about 30 seconds and took a couple of deep breaths. It was a transformative moment for me. Why did myself and the other fella let ourselves do something that would please others, but that we didn’t want to do? Why were we so worried about what other people thought of us? That was the turning point for me as regards living a life of integrity, courage, doing the right thing, being true to yourself. So I went back to school and put the shoulder down and studied hard, and I’d back up the people who were being bullied and challenge the guys who were doing the bullying.
“At first, lads tried to pull me back into the old ways, lads who were maybe involved in drink and drugs; some of them might even have done a bit of jail-time. But my mother was very supportive, telling me that if I could be good at hurling, I could be good in school as well. And after a while lads realised that I was staying on my path, regardless of what they said or did, and that won me a lot of respect around the place.”
It also earned him a good enough Leaving Cert to study engineering in CIT, where he’d graduate before going on to become a lead structural engineer for a multinational company.
And all the while there was the hurling.
From captaining the Cork minors in 2007 to captaining the seniors to a Munster title in 2017 to his final couple of appearances coming off the bench in last winter’s championship. It was quite the rollercoaster, throwing up its share of moments where he had to again look at his knuckles, or at least deep into his soul.
“When you look back on it, that’s a lot of times you crossed that white line, a lot of time where you were being really tested, as a person as well as a player. Making a mistake in the middle of a game and how you respond, the preparation — they were all challenges and opportunities for you to grow as a person.
“So I just see it now as this massive transformative journey. You really got to know yourself as a person and what you were really about.”
He was thrown right into the deep end, and immediately found that was the only place to be, the zone which best triggered his zone — on his championship debut he was tasked with marking the reigning Hurler of the Year, Lar Corbett. And for the guts of the decade that’s pretty much the way it remained. Whether it was TJ Reid, Tony Kelly, Richie Hogan, or Austin Gleeson, he invariably marked the opposition’s dangerman.
“I loved that. It was basically a Pygmalion effect: if the manager entrusted you to do a job, it made you believe even more in yourself and lifted your own expectations.
“If I was told to go out and just mark whoever came into my corner, that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more pressure than that. I wanted to be the last man back. It might have sometimes meant being the last back with a load of space in front of me, but while it was challenging, I didn’t mind that.”
The 2012 league final was particularly challenging. At half time he was taken off and subsequently dropped for the opening round of the championship, Eoin Larkin having caught two high balls off him to score a goal and set up another.
“He [Larkin] was unbelievable in the air. I learned a lot from that about aerial battles. I was battling him; I shouldn’t have done that. I had to understand that if I was marking someone who is exceptional in the air, sometimes they might catch the ball and you won’t. It’s how you respond to that and still step forward; if you make a mistake, keep going forward. Say to yourself: ‘You’ve got this, let it go, stay in the moment.’ That day I stepped back: I was probably affected by the roar of the crowd that went up and stopped attacking the game. But I didn’t beat myself up too much about it. I’d had a good season leading into it, and knew I’d get another chance.”
That he did; the following game he was back in the starting lineup and the following year he was lining out in an All-Ireland final against Clare. But instead of viewing it as a day he’d prepared all his life for, a part of him saw that day as something he was unworthy of, and that part had consumed him.
“I caught got up in the hype. While I would have doubts before going into games and done fine, this was different. My family were all excited about it. A bus was going up from the club. The whole park came out to clap me off when I was leaving for the game. I mean, you’re talking about 30 people, kids out in their Cork jerseys, everyone came up to shake my hand. I started to feel the pressure: ‘Jesus, what if I don’t play well here?’
“There’s an old story about a Cherokee elder talking to his grandson about life, how we each have two wolves within us. One is negative and destructive, fuelled by either anger, or envy, or self-pity, or arrogance. The other then is full of joy, optimism, courage. The young fella asks him: ‘Well, which wolf wins?’ And the elder says: ‘Whichever wolf you feed.’
“And that’s what happened to me. I fed my fear wolf, and it just took over. I went into that game thinking about how I didn’t deserve it, no one from my family had been near a Cork team, let alone winning an All-Ireland: I was nearly looking for reasons I wasn’t going to play well. So going into the game, I wasn’t stepping forward, I was sitting back.”
At first after the game he didn’t think he had been that bad; Podge Collins may have edged their individual duel but he’d caught a couple of balls and made some other good plays. He’d got through it OK and was saying to himself he’d get through the replay as well.
“The fear wolf was still active at that moment. But then on the bus back home there was a newspaper circulating around and I could feel some heat coming back at me. The paper eventually came my way and there were these player ratings, and of course I immediately zoned in to see what they’d given me. And I’d got a four out of 10. The worst of any player.
“And that was the moment where I told myself: ‘You won’t just be OK the next day. You need to change something.’ The courage wolf kicked in. So I started to reflect, challenge my beliefs. ‘Listen, you’re in good shape. You’ve trained hard, you’ve trained hard your whole life.’ And I came up with three statements that would counter any negative ones and consciously started saying them back to myself. ‘I’m ready. I’m looking forward to this, I’ve got this, I thrive under pressure.’ Because I do! That was the whole thing. You can say all the positive mantras you want, but if they’re not credible, they’re worthless — but I was saying things that I believed because they were true.”
Cork lost that replay, but not without launching a fierce comeback and McDonnell being one of the three nominees for Man of the Match; indeed, he’d been so imbued by the courage wolf, his training-ground form prompted Jimmy Barry-Murphy to move him to centre-back to mark Tony Kelly.
That wolf has remained his best friend. Five years ago, things were going well in the day job as a lead structural engineer with a big multinational, but the courage wolf told him to take a plunge and set up his own management consultancy, Live Unbound (www.LiveUnbound.ie).
His work as a Sky Sports ambassador reinforced for him his passion to help empower and improve people, and after talking to the GPA, he pursued an international diploma in executive coaching from the Irish Management Institute.
“It took me about three weeks to finally hand in my notice to my boss. Everyone was saying I was mad. I’d a good job, had made good friends, was going in the right direction there, but I just knew there was something else out there that was better and give me a platform to make a bigger impact.
“On the course there were really senior people in organisations on it, and again I was thinking: ‘God, am I up to this here?’ But I found I was very much at that level and that I was good at the coaching side of it.”
He began with this particular CEO of a multi-million firm, asking him to reflect on what his supposed values were, and how he spent the 168 hours of his week.
His values weren’t rhyming with his time. He’d said he prioritised his health, yet only was dedicating two hours a week to exercise; going by his schedule, watching TV seemed more important to him. So after holding up that mirror, he was able to empower that client, and win many more.
That’s meant being willing to let others hold up a mirror to him.
“I know I can improve until the day I die and that there are people with 20 years more experience than I have. So I have about five supervisors from all around the world. I spend a good bit of money every year on supervision, because to me, it’s not a cost, it’s an investment.”
As his business continued to grow though, he became increasingly aware of how there were only 168 hours in his own week also. In 2018 he took a year out from playing with Cork to really solidify his business. Then, this past January, he informed Kieran Kingston that he was handing in his badge for good. His business had expanded with a Discover Your Best programme extremely well rated by the employees of his clients to help combat the challenges of Covid.
And last July, little Sonny was born to himself and Ericka. He’s been a joy, but has suffered considerably from reflux, meaning a lot of sleepless nights, occasionally in hospital.
“If I was still there with Cork, it would be the selfish thing to do. Other things would suffer. Of course it’s a challenge not being involved, especially in a week like this: I lived for the championship. But it’s a lot easier to watch Cork now and not being involved because I already went through the experience in 2018 when I went from being captain to watching from the stand.
“And I’m lucky I’m still playing with a club like the Glen that’s competing for county titles; a lot of the time when the county players retire they struggle as they can’t replicate that competitive environment in their own clubs, whereas I can.
“So look, I’m doing well. I’m now 32, have a family, a kid, another on the way, on top of the business flying it at the moment, so I know I’m exactly where I need to be.”
He likes where Cork are too. At times in his own playing days it could be frustrating, especially given his knowledge of performance coaching, sensing a setup wasn’t quite as confident or as well-tuned as he’d have wanted, but he feels in Kieran Kingston, Cork are in good hands now.
“I’ve huge time for Kieran. He believed in me, making me captain in 2017, probably more than I believed in myself. And he has the experience of being in a semi-final that year. We had a man sent off that day against Waterford, and maybe didn’t set ourselves up after that to win. But he and his management are now going to come with a plan for whatever is thrown at them at the weekend.”
In the meantime, McDonnell will keep working with other managers and teams. Keep stepping forward. Feed and listen to your courage wolf. It might have been the road less travelled back when he was a kid, but for him, it has made all the difference.
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