English returns with US athletes

PHIL ENGLISH, winner of the highest accolade ever awarded to an Irish athletics coach working in the USA, will return home next week with 23 American High School cross-country athletes from Washington State.

English, a native of Cullen in Tipperary, became the first Irishman to receive a US National Award for Coaching earlier this year. The science teacher at Eisenhower High School in Washington State was named the 2001 Girls Cross-Country Coach of the Year. For the past 16 years he has brought teams drawn from the State of Washington to Ireland for both cultural and sporting activities including races around Munster.

Next week they visit London and will arrive in Cork on December 30 for a race in Midleton on New Year’s Day. They leave for Limerick on New Year’s Eve and will have a race in Killenaule on January 5 at 2pm.