Photo Gallery (Courtesy of Kevin Foley '83)
PHOENIX – Haverford College men’s track and field and cross country coach Tom Donnelly was inducted in the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association (USTFCCCA) Coaches’ Hall of Fame last night.
Donnelly was one of six coaches who were part of the Class of 2014 inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches’ Hall of Fame. Chris Daymont of St. Olaf, Joey Haines of Southeast Missouri, Lance Harter of Arkansas, Ed Nuttycombe of Wisconsin and Johnny Thomas of Southern (La.) are the other members.
Haverford’s longest tenured coach recently wrapped up his 40th season as men’s cross country head coach. His 2014 team won the Centennial Conference for the 19th time in 22 seasons. Junior Charlie Marquardt took home the individual title becoming the 17th Ford to win the conference race. Donnelly was named CC Coach of the Year for the fourth time. Marquardt also won the Mideast Regional while the Fords tallied a fourth place finish. The team was awarded an at large bid to the NCAA Championship, making it the 22nd straight season that it qualified for the national meet.
The head coach reached the coaching pinnacle when the Fords won the 2010 NCAA Division III Cross Country National Championship, the first team in Haverford history to achieve the mark. That team had five All-Americans including Anders Hulleberg’11 who won a national individual title. The cross country team nearly duplicated that feat during the 2011 and 2012 seasons, finishing second. Donnelly’s team have finished in the top ten at the NCAA Championship in nine of the last 11 seasons.
Haverford has crowned 59 All-Americans at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships under Donnelly. This total includes 31 All-Americans from individual performances and 28 more from a total of seven different All-American relay teams. Ten of those All-American performances culminated in national championships. On the conference level, the Fords have had 130 gold medals, 86 more than the second most school.
On the outdoor track, the Fords have won 18 of the last 21 conference championships with its most recent victory coming during the 2013 season. Haverford has dominated at the conference meet on the individual level as well, claiming 100 gold medals, 47 more than the next school. Donnelly has coached 66 individuals to All-American honors during the spring season. Fifteen of those performances have resulted in individual national championships at Haverford.
Donnelly has guided two Division III Hall of Famers, Karl Paranya ’97 and Seamus McElligott ’91 in his career. Paranya went to the 1996 and 2000 Olympic trials and had the first sub-four minute mile in NCAA Division III history under the coach’s tutelage. He was inducted into the USTFCCCA Track and Field Athlete Hall of Fame in 2010. McElligott won the NCAA championships in cross country, the indoor 5K, outdoor 5K and 10K, and became an All-American at the Division I Cross Country Championships under Donnelly. McElligott was inducted in 2013.
Throughout his coaching career, Donnelly's student-athletes have impressed on the track and in the classroom. 12 of his student-athletes have received a NCAA postgraduate scholarship including at least one in four of the past five years. Andrew Lanham '10 was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, the first Haverford athlete to achieve the honor since 1982. Since the 2005-06 academic year,Donnelly has had 35 student-athletes across the three seasons make the Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area teams.
Before becoming a coach, the USTFCCCA Hall of Famer was an All-American in cross country and track at Villanova University from 1966-69. He helped lead the Wildcats to three consecutive NCAA cross country championships and one NCAA track title.