JohnFMurray.com

With alcoholism threatening to ruin his football career and marriage, Paul McGrath slashed his wrists as he sat in his bedroom with his young son in November 1989.

McGrath is trying to rebuild his life after decades of alcoholism
McGrath says it was a “cry for help”, unlike later suicide attempts, and a few days later he played in midfield for Aston Villa against Everton.

He wore large sweatbands to cover the scars on his wrists and starred in a 6-2 win.

This stark contrast between his assurance and confidence on the pitch and his insecurity off it recurs throughout McGrath’s recently published autobiography Back From The Brink.

“I always felt comfortable on a football pitch,” McGrath, looking impeccable in a navy suit and crisp white shirt, says.

“That was the time I wanted to shine. It is wonderful to hear your name being chanted in the stadium, you cannot buy that.

“I didn’t have a nerve in my body when I played football. The nervousness came in when I wasn’t playing football, that was when I had problems.

“I always shied away from the publicity. I didn’t like microphones, I didn’t like TV, I didn’t like any of the hassles. I just didn’t like the hype that surrounded football. The drinking seemed to ease the pressures that I felt.”

McGrath is often described as the Republic of Ireland’s most popular sportsman and is still adored by fans of Manchester United and Villa.

The defender was renowned for having what his United and Republic team-mate Kevin Moran describes as “an overdrive”.

PAUL McGRATH FACTFILE

Born: 4 April 1959
Clubs: St Patrick’s (1981-82); Man Utd (1982-89); Aston Villa (1989-96); Derby (1996-97); Sheff Utd (1997-98)
International: 83 caps and 8 goals for Republic of Ireland
Honours: FA Cup (1985); League Cup (1994, 1996); PFA Player of the Year 1993

“It is what very few players have – the ability to be running at high pace with someone and, all of a sudden, it’s like a fifth gear kicks in,” says Moran.

McGrath won 83 caps for the Republic of Ireland, played in two World Cups and was the Professional Footballers’ Association’s player of the year in 1993.

Yet he has revealed that he was racked by feelings of insecurity and inferiority throughout his football career.

He grew up in an orphanage in Dublin because his mother had been afraid to take a black child back home to her father.

It was a tough and unforgiving environment and the 46-year-old says many of his problems stem from this time.

“If you are told you are no good often enough as a kid, you start to believe it,” he states. “And I was growing up in Dublin when there weren’t a lot of black kids around. It meant I had this awful shyness.”

A football club was not the best environment in which to discuss such issues.

“If you are out for a session with the boys, you are not going to talk to them about these underlying problems,” he adds.

“And you are not going to say ‘I am feeling a little bit insecure and shy and frightened and on edge’. You would get a good slapping off one of them.

“You would be loath to discuss it with footballers, I will tell you that.”

McGrath says he could consider a coaching career
Instead, he sought solace in the bottle. McGrath says Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson did not mind players drinking as long as they performed on a Saturday and the centre-half quickly became a fixture in the first team.

But Alex Ferguson replaced Big Ron at Old Trafford in 1986 and quickly made it clear he wanted a “football club and not a drinking club”.

McGrath was subsequently sold to Villa in 1989 and it was shortly after this that he slashed his wrists.

Yet he says he harbours no ill feeling towards Ferguson and came to greatly like and respect him after leaving United.

“I hated Fergie at the time but I have come to understand what he did,” says McGrath.

“In fact, I wish I had listened to him and changed my lifestyle. He has been nothing but kind to me since I left the club and has shown himself to be a really decent human being.”

McGrath played the best football of his career during his seven years at Villa Park and was the club’s player of the season for four straight years.

Yet alcoholism meant his private life continued to be torrid and troubled.

McGrath, who is still an athletic and imposing figure, says he has been sober for the last couple of months and is trying to rebuild his life.

Speaking softly but with purpose, he says: “I had been in Ireland wallowing in self-pity. Now it is a case of starting again and winning back the trust of people I have hurt along the way.

“I am far more confident that I can do something now. I am nearly 47 now and it is time to let that stuff from my childhood go and live my life.”

He says he might even consider a career in coaching.

“People’s ears would prick up because they would think I could never make a coach,” he says.

“At the moment, it is just a matter of keeping my feet on the ground but after that I would not rule out anything.”

Face it, Greg Wafford. You flunked the quiz.

Who knows maybe hes extremely knowledgeable when it comes to the Roman Empire or how to dissect a frog. But in terms of the well-documented recent history of the Kansas State-Missouri football series, Wafford falls in the fairly clueless category.

Asked how many times in a row the Wildcats have beaten the Tigers, K-State’s starting senior left tackle wasn’t very close.œI don’t know. Four or five? Wafford guessed.Im not into that. I just know they havent beaten us in a while.

Try 13 straight years. And what Wafford classifies as while must seem like an eternity to MU.

Although MU hasn’t defeated K-State since the other George Bush resided in the White House (1992), the oddsmakers would have you believe the 24th-ranked Tigers are on the verge of ending their misery. MU, 6-1 overall and 2-1 in the Big 12, is a 16-point favorite as it prepares to play K-State, 4-3 and 1-2, at 1 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Columbia.

Tigers running back Tony Temple is well aware of the streak. K-State recruited him out of Rockhurst High School and went to great lengths to point out how lopsided the series had become with MU. K-State’s effort to convince Temple went beyond words when it came to calculating the series lately.

“They had it on flash cards,” Temple said.

Was K-State misleading Temple? Not really, according to Tigers sports information director Chad Moller.

“If you look back objectively over the last 13 years, they had a better team the majority of the time,” Moller said of the Wildcats.

So how does MU mentally overcome the streak? Not easily, according to John Murray, a sports psychologist in Palm Beach, Fla.

The team that’s been winning has a good, relaxed, confident feeling because they know they can do it. There’s absolutely no doubt, Murray said. “On the other side, theyre thinking, ˜Lets see if we can win this finally.’ Or ‘Let’s turn the tables.

Not a good approach for MU, Murray says.

“So from the very beginning, youre starting off with an improper mind-set. You’re thinking too much of the outcome instead of thinking it just another game, he said.

Tell that to Navy. The Midshipmen have been sunk 42 straight times by Notre Dame. Gene McKeehan, former assistant coach at Navy and now in a similar position at Cal Poly State, said Navy coaches never played up the streak for motivational purposes.

“The only one that brought it up was the media,McKeehan said. “We treated it like it was just another game. I didn’t think about it at all. But you would think the chips would fall the other way just once. It’s amazing.

So was Kansas’ 31-game overall winning streak in men’s basketball over K-State, which ended in January as the Wildcats upset the Jayhawks in Lawrence.

“I knew I hadn’t beaten KU since Id been in school, and it weighed heavily on me, said Schyler Thomas, a reserve guard for K-State who helped beat KU. You cant block it out. The coaches did their best not to bring it up. But the fans, everybody, wanted you to win so bad that you couldnt help but think about it.

K-State coach Ron Prince isnt sure what to make of the streak. But he’s glad the program he inherited is on the right side of it.

“In the preparation and all the conversation about it, sometimes that can weigh heavily on kids’ minds, and maybe at some point in the game someone makes a play or fails to make a play and we all attribute it to ghosts, and I’m not real sure about that,” Prince said. “How you prepare during the week and perform on Saturday are more a function of it.

K-State has beaten MU in close calls during the streak (21-18 in 1994), blowouts (66-0 in 1999) and years the Wildcats weren’t Big 12 title challengers. That would go for 2001, when a K-State team that finished 6-6 beat the Tigers 24-3.

It didnt matter if that wasnt Bill Snyders finest team, said former K-State wide receiver Brandon Clark, who played on that team. What mattered, he said, was the Wildcats had MU’s number.

“A big part of it was just confidence. You played them before and you beat them before, so why think anything other than that? said Clark, now a high school football coach at Derby, Kan.

K-State senior nose tackle Quintin Echols thinks MU isnt focused on the streak.

Theyre thinking about winning this game this year and not thinking about any other years in the past, Echols said.

But Echols’ backup, junior Steven Cline, has the opposite sentiment. And he doesn’t blame the Tigers one bit for feeling that way.

“I’m sure theyre going to be coming at us pretty hard. I mean, if I lost to somebody 13 straight times, I know Id be coming at them pretty hard, too, Cline said.

NFL Coaches Lack Real Toughness

Im fed up with many NFL coaches. At any given time Im working with a few NFL Players. Ive helped starting quarterbacks break slumps, tight-ends decide not to quit, field goal kickers kick anxiety, and running backs stay out of trouble. Despite the obvious benefits of mental coaching and sport psychology services, the NFL stands as the last great closed-door fraternity, or some say mafia, in sports. Coaches somehow perceive mental coaching and counseling as weakness. Tough guys, they reason, dont talk. They just shut up and knock someones head off. i been personally telephoned a few times by NFL coaches to come into team headquarters and help manage a mental crisis but the vast majority of my referrals come from the players themselves or the players’ families or agents. The truth is that NFL coaches are afraid of change. As strong and as tough as they supposedly are, this is sad and ironic. Their controlling natures make them very weak and in this way they lack toughness. This prevents players from getting the help they need from legitimate and licensed sports psychologists. This also hurts their teams. I have seen it up close many many times. Ive been on national television talking about this and still the progress is slow. Kudos to Dr. Z at Sports Illustrated. After the recent TO apparent suicide attempt Z wrote a great article entitled NFLs Mental Problem: Teams Cat Deal with Player Psychological Issues (SI.com September 26 2006). I went on ESPN and NBC television to discuss this. Here is what I propose. The new brand of young and smart NFL coach needs to get tougher. By tougher I mean they need to wake up and hire a sport psychologist at the beginning of training camp to work with all the players on mental skills development, and counseling as needed. In-house is best. What is it going to take to wake these coaches from their slumber? A suicide on national tv by a star player? Years of team choking and ineptitude? Hello coaches! There is a whole field out there just waiting to be tapped. It is based on many years of research and practice. It is designed to help you win games and help your players stay out of trouble. It will help your players be much tougher than they are. You will be happy when they knock their opponents heads off with more confidence and focus.