Pat O’Neill
You have heard me mention Pat O’Neill a couple of times in past articles. Pat was a legendary football coach from the late 40’s to the 60’s at Lawrenceburg High School. He also coached baseball, but that is another story all in itself. I have touched upon that several times in the past. This article will center on some of Pat’s buddies in the coaching business.Pat not only had an innovative mind in the field of coaching, but the people he associated with became famous in their own time. It is often debated among old timers if Pat was the teacher or Pat was the listener. Who are these people we are talking about? The first one that comes to mind is Paul Brown (former Bengal coach and owner). A second colleague was Ara Parsighiana, former Notre Dame coach, and a third colleague was Woody Hayes, former Ohio State coach. All of these guys, at one time or another, were connected to Miami University in Oxford. As you can see, this was quite a list of football legends.Many colleagues of Pat will tell you that when these guys met all of them asked questions of each other. It was not that any one of them considered themselves the expert. Who knows where Pat might have gone had he not enjoyed coaching high school students and molding them rather than branching out into higher leagues. Paul Brown tried relentlessly to get Pat to join him as a football colleague in Cleveland.