The Man Who United Ireland

Then, the evening before the final, he was nervous. "I spoke to Gerry Farnan and said I was just going to follow John Walker [ New Zealand's world-record holder in the mile at 3:49.4] and go in the last straight. Gerry was content with that, and I felt better. I went to bed and fell right to sleep.

"In the morning Jumbo called. He said that with all the faster half-milers in the field, like Rick Wohlhuter and Ivo Van Damme from Belgium, if the pace was slow I'd have to run their speed out of them. I'd have to lead. I think the bottom fell out of my confidence right there. I remember warming up, unable to keep from watching everything Walker and Van Damme did. I should have been concentrating. I was new to this last plateau. I went to the line confused."

Dave Moorcroft of England was in front at the 400-meter mark, in 62.5. "Frustration set in," says Coghlan. "I led after 500 meters. As soon as I was in front I started praying for someone to pass me." The 800 was 2:03.2, the pack compressed within three strides. "It was a horrible realization," Coghlan says, shaking his arms at the memory of those moments. "They were kickers. Instead of running it out of them, I was running it out of me."

Walker challenged on the third lap, less a decisive move than one to establish a position to kick from. "I held him off, held him off," says Coghlan. "That was wrong. I should have just readied myself for one last burst." Walker went by in earnest with 300 meters to run and the race was on. Van Damme went by. "I held off Wohlhuter on the turn, but when I hit the straight the zip was gone," Coghlan says. Van Damme moved out to challenge Walker. Coghlan found the inside blocked by Paul-Heinz Wellmann of West Germany, the outside by Van Damme. "I had nowhere to go. I began to lean, but it was too early. I lost momentum before the line. Wellmann passed me for the bronze medal. I had lost the gold by three-tenths of a second. As far as I was concerned, it was the end of my career."

The following weeks were for Coghlan the closest to purgatory he cares to pass. "I tried to be brave, but I was hurt in a way I had never been. All the omens had seemed right, all my dreams had been of success. I went back to the Villanova campus and was afraid to face anyone. I walked across the street to avoid the question." He looks across at his running companion. "You know, fourth is the absolute worst place to finish in the Olympics.

"It took weeks, but I got over it," he says, perhaps too brightly. "Maybe it was a good thing to have happen because you learn what it's worth, the medal. And it's not the world. I visited Walker last year, and I said, 'Hey, John, where's that medal you won off me?' And there it was on the wall, just a medal with a bunch of other medals."

When he returned to Dublin after graduating with a degree in management, Coghlan submitted the training he had been doing at Villanova to Gerry Farnan's review. Farnan felt that Elliott's program, which was based on 400-yard intervals, certainly had given Coghlan speed but not the stamina to sustain it. Farnan added weekly 20-mile runs and vigorous three-quarter-and 1�-mile intervals over hills. "Gerry likes things done right," Coghlan says, "but he prefers to stay in the background. In training he knows me through and through. If I'm down and don't want to run, he'll know whether there is something organically wrong or whether I just need to get going." Coghlan has granted the same decision-making powers to Farnan that Elliott demanded. "I don't want to agonize about how everything ought to go. We have a talk every three or four weeks and adjust the schedule as seems best." Thus Coghlan resolves the eternal tension between thought and action by a division of labor, leaving the coach's contemplations unclouded by the runner's fears, the runner's labor unburdened by doubt.

It works, as proved by his 3:52.6 indoor record. Coghlan speaks as if that run may have lifted him to a yet loftier plateau. "There was some question in my mind whether I'd ever run a 3:53 again. I'd done it in 1975, then 3:53.4 in 1977. Running it indoors has given me a real confidence."

After a shower, Coghlan drops by his parents' home, where he sits down to a quick cup of tea beside the coal fire in their small, medal- and trophy-cluttered parlor. Mrs. Kathleen Coghlan, his mother, has flashing russet hair. Before she has time for pleasantries, the doorbell rings and in rushes Father Andy Sheehan, a runner, singer and the priest who christened Coghlan's daughter.

"Ah, I was watching you struggle away down there in the Limerick mud," he says to Eamonn, laughing at the recollection of the World Cross-Country Championship weeks earlier. "That's why I missed the Music Society meeting." Father Sheehan reveals that he has taken delivery of a new Kawasaki 650 motorcycle, his second in a month. "Can you imagine? Some bugger stole the first."