Coach Of 40 National Championship Teams Died Monday At 82

By Doug Binder and Erik Boal, DyeStat Editors

The most successful coach in the history of NCAA Division 1 track and field died Monday in his beloved adopted state of Arkansas, as the aparatus of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships was roaring back to life after 2020's cancellation. 

John McDonnell, who emigrated from Ireland, turned Arkansas into a perennial champion over a 36-year career that produced a staggering 40 national championships coaching the men's programs. Under McDonnell, Arkansas won the NCAA Indoor title 19 times, Outdoor title 10 times and Cross Country 11 times.

"It’s a sad day today in Arkansas Athletics," said Arkansas coach Chris Bucknam, who took over the Razorbacks men's programs from McDonnell in 2008.

"We’ve lost a phenomenal mentor and coach, but my thoughts are 100 percent with (his wife) Ellen and (son) Sean and (daughter) Heather and (son-in-law) Jeff and the immediate family. Their loss is 100 times more. I’m just trying to wrap my arms around it, and just hoping for the best for the family.

"I send my sincere condolences to all the athletes and coaches that he worked with. It’s a beautiful legacy, and I’m just thinking about those athletes and coaches that worked so closely with him, including Lance (Harter), who spent many years here as a colleague."

McDonnell became the Arkansas men's cross country coach in 1972 and took over the entire track program in 1978. The Razorbacks became national champions for the first time at the 1984 Indoor Championships, beginning an unprecedented run of 12 consecutive Division 1 titles. 

Over the period between 1984 and his retirement in 2008, the Razorbacks won 40 championships and every other school combined won 24. 

His teams produced 54 individual national champions. 

Harter, who has coached the women's cross country and track and field programs since 1990, visited McDonnell in hospice care Sunday in Fayetteville, along with Bucknam. 

"For the entire state of Arkansas, he gave world credibility that Arkansas is something you better be proud of because track and field was synonymous with winning," Harter said. "I’ve been fortunate enough to be on a lot of international teams, and we could be somewhere across the world, and people would go, ‘Oh, do you know John McDonnell?’ He was an international celebrity when it came to our sport."

Arkansas' track and field teams are set to begin competing at the NCAA Division 1 Outdoor Championships on Wednesday at Hayward Field in Eugene. The last time they were held, in 2019, the Arkansas women completed a Triple Crown — something McDonnell's men's teams did five times. 

"Whatever he touched, turned to gold. He was hard working, but also an amazing man of energy. He always had his family behind him to be able to do the amazing things that he did," Harter said.

"He was always labeled as a distance coach, but one of the things I always noticed with him as a head coach, he was incredibly adaptable. There were championships he won where basically the majority (of the athletes) were sprinters. There were championships he won with primarily jumpers. So whatever was the formula that was going to be most successful for Arkansas, he would adapt to, and then he would fill in whatever strengths he had with maybe a distance crew to complement it. That’s a model that he created."

McDonnell was also instrumental in the construction in 2000 of the Randal Tyson Track Center indoor facility, the home venue for the Razorbacks, which has played host to several conference and national championship events during the past two decades, including the SEC and Division 1 Indoor finals this past season.

"I think he brought indoor track to a new level when he got together with Don Tyson and they created the Tyson Center with a banked track. He changed the whole model with a banked indoor track and it was a dedicated facility and now look at what’s happened across the country with that," Bucknam said. "He touched everybody in Fayetteville. It wasn’t just track people, it was every walk of life in Fayetteville that appreciated the winning and what he brought to the state of Arkansas.

"He was very much a team guy. He wanted as many people involved as possible. He loved the team aspect of track. He was there for everybody in every season and he always felt like every season had a meaning. Cross country works toward indoors, and indoors is important toward outdoors, and without all three of them, you never reach your potential, and that’s how he changed the sport."