New Orleans – The United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) has announced today (Aug. 6) that Tom Donnelly will be inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame on Dec. 15, 2014 at the USTFCCCA Convention in Phoenix, Ariz.
Donnelly is one of six coaches who will be a part of the USTFCCCA 2014 Hall of Fame class. 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 head coach, Donnelly is in his 40th season at the helm of the men’s cross country and track and field teams. During his time with the Fords, he’s won a total of 70 conference championships between the Middle Athletic and Centennial Conference, coached 27 NCAA individual champions and 157 All-Americans across the three different seasons.
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. In 2013, the team qualified for the NCAA championships for the 21st straight season.
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 outdoor track, the Fords have won 18 of the last 21 conference championships with its most recent victory coming during the 2013 season. 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. 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.
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.