Sport

Brendan Crossan: There's more to Terence McNaughton than a GAA Hall of Fame award

Terence McNaughton recalls his childhood and the problems he encountered due to a speech impediment before discovering a passion for hurling Picture by John 'Curly' McIlwaine
Terence McNaughton recalls his childhood and the problems he encountered due to a speech impediment before discovering a passion for hurling Picture by John 'Curly' McIlwaine Terence McNaughton recalls his childhood and the problems he encountered due to a speech impediment before discovering a passion for hurling Picture by John 'Curly' McIlwaine

BACK in 1999, I was entering the world of sports journalism at a time when Terence McNaughton’s hurling career was coming to a close.

Unfortunately, I read more about his career than I actually saw ‘in the flesh’ but my journalist colleague Gerry McLaughlin – a consummate master of the written word – summed up the Cushendall man’s warrior spirit better than anyone.

“McNaughton," he wrote, "does not fear where the timber tests his soul; you could hear his heart beating from the stands.”

Our paths crossed when McNaughton was invited by The Irish News to write a weekly hurling column.

It was the era of the fax machine, long before everyone was on email, which meant the various sports columns were ghost-written.

Most Fridays I drew the short straw where I’d phone him to put together his column for the following day.

By the time he’d smoked two or three roll-ups and had a few laughs, the column would be firmed up and ready for print.

Typical of the man, the column was always forthright, full of passion and thought-provoking.

He’s always possessed a great turn of phrase too.

I once asked what his club meant to him, he said: “Your club means that you’re playing with guys that are going to carry you to your grave. That’s what a club is.”

On retirement, he reflected: “Retiring from hurling was deeply personal. I found it hard. Hurling gave you a purpose. Playing the game I loved, you knew you were alive.

“I don’t want to sit in the car-park waiting for B&Q to open on a Sunday afternoon at one o’clock to buy the latest screw-driver.

“I’m not the guy who washes his Volkswagen Golf on a Sunday morning ‘til it’s absolutely spotless. I was never that person. I miss playing hurling. I just miss playing the game I’m passionate about.”

For a long time I didn’t know we shared the same passion for Bruce Springsteen’s music. I’d written a review for the newspaper of one of Springsteen’s rare concert appearances in Belfast.

He rang me up and was full of gushing praise.

A few years later, Terence, his wife Ursula and my partner and I were in the RDS stands in Dublin singing Thunder Road and chanting: ‘Bruuuuuuce’ at the big stage.

I’ve interviewed him umpteen times over the years but it was only when we decided to sit down for a proper chat in the Lurig Inn – his pub in his native Cushendall – in April 2018 that I got a deeper appreciation of his life.

I saw enough footage of ’89 to appreciate how big a heart he had on the field and just how pure a hurler he was.

As a kid, he’d spend endless hours up at old James Stewart’s ruined cottage hitting a ball against its walls with half a hurl. It was where he planed and polished his hurling.

What you see is what you get with him: raw honesty.

In the interview at the back of the Lurig Inn he talked about his childhood and explained in graphic terms the paralyzing impact of having a stammer.

“People used to give me money to buy sweets and I would never have gone into a shop. I just couldn’t communicate. I threw the money in the drawer…I would have walked away from people if they’d asked me the time in the street. The speech impediment affected every aspect of my life. If you could understand the things I couldn’t do.”

School brought its own woes too.

“School, to me, was lashing out and being taunted.”

One teacher would bring him up to the front of the class to read and every time he stuttered, the teacher hit him on the back of the head with a book.

“He thought he could beat it out of me,” McNaughton recalled.

Because of his speech impediment, he was sent to an additional needs school in Larne every Monday.

He hated that bus journey.

“And when I went to secondary school, guys from other towns went to the school, so it started all over again.”

The game of hurling proved his one true outlet and Alex Emerson – ironically a schoolteacher – helped nurture his talent.

“Hurling was the only thing I was given credit for,” he said.

In 1977, his local club Ruairi Ogs won the U12 North Antrim Championship. Although he didn’t know it at the time, life – thanks to hurling - would get much better as he grew older.

He was one of the driving forces of Ruairi Ogs’ ascent in the early 1980s and soon became one of the best hurlers not only in Antrim but in Ireland.

McNaughton was defiance itself.

He won a GAA Allstar in 1991 and was always destined to stay in the game through coaching and managing.

He’s coached at every level at his club and county and just this season he guided St Enda’s, Glengormley to Division One and they’re preparing for their upcoming Junior Hurling Championship final with Carey.

Earlier this week McNaughton was inducted into the GAA’s Hall of Fame alongside five other hurling and football greats.

It was a proud day for Antrim GAA, his club and his family.

I’ve got to know Sambo over the years. One thing that strikes you is he’s a deeply intelligent individual.

Scrape the surface and you’ll find the poet and someone with boundless human decency.

Listening to his torturous childhood – all because of a stammer, which he’s virtually beaten - he was failed miserably by the prevailing education system of the day.

And yet, he never let it define him.

After Kilkenny beat Limerick in this year’s All-Ireland semi-finals, Brian Cody talked about resilience.

“Look,” Cody said, “it’s either in a fella or it’s not. You can’t say to fellas: ‘Hurl with your heart and soul’, and they may never be able to do that.”

You can’t teach the kind of resilience Terence McNaughton has shown since he was a young kid.

Today, he is hugely successful in every aspect of his life.

Forget what he achieved on the hurling field, he is a living, walking parable for kids – and parents of kids - who mightn’t be blessed with the same skills set as some of their peers, and that their world can still be one of infinite possibilities.

That’s Terence McNaughton’s greatest achievement. That's the winner's medal that really counts. His GAA Hall of Fame induction on Tuesday morning in Croke Park only told one part of the story.