ATHLETICS:A visit to one greatly loved sage inspires fond ruminations on the life and extraordinary achievements of another

I CALLED INTO Con Houlihan on Thursday evening to pay homage - as you do - and also to collect a book he'd promised me on Percy Cerutty. Some of you may remember Cerutty as coach to the great Australian miler Herb Elliott.

"Mad bastard," says Con, at the very mention of his name.

"And I mean that in a good way. He was ahead of his time, Cerutty. He was self-taught, learned from his own mistakes. A great coach. A genius.

"And do you know he loved Ireland? Probably because he found so many mad people here as well."

As I topped up Con's mug of Steinlager (his favourite brew, outside of Belgium) we got talking about what it is that makes a great coach. Cerutty certainly qualifies and yet was more of a one-off - eccentric, charismatic and controversial, in equal measure. Often imitated, as they say, but never bettered.

Cerutty grew up in extreme poverty and didn't taste any kind of fruit until he was 15. In 1942, at age 47, his health had failed so dramatically that he decided to do something dramatic about it. He revolutionised his diet, eating only raw, natural food, and embarked on a violent exercise regime. Five years later, at aged 52, he ran a marathon in exactly three hours.

"Before you can call yourself a man you should be able to walk 100 miles in 48 hours, swim a mile and lift your own weight overhead."

So ran one of his mantras.

Cerutty wanted to spread his gospel and set up a training camp at the little seaside town of Portsea, on the Victorian coast - perfect for his murderous running sessions over the vast sand dunes.

Among the young runners drawn there were John Landy and, later, Elliott, who soon became Cerutty's most famous protege. Theirs was the classic coach-athlete relationship. The respect was mutual, the trust absolute.

"He had the ability to transfix you with words," Elliott recalled, "and lift you 20 feet into the air. I mean he had a wonderful eloquence, an inspiring eloquence about him. He was eccentric, he was unpredictable, and he was entertaining, had an enormous sense of fun, but he would be very close to probably the most widely read man that I've met, in terms of the breadth of subjects that he read about: spiritual aspects or physical aspects or mental aspects, or art, or science or saints or devils."

Elliott has left no doubt that Cerutty was the brain and inspiration behind his 1,500 metres gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Losing was never an option; the only tactic considered was whether to go for the world record. It was agreed Cerutty would stand on the back stretch, and wave a white towel if he felt the record was on. On seeing this signal, Elliott duly accelerated and won by 20 yards in 3:35.6 - a world record.

Cerutty had in fact jumped from the stand and over the protective moat surrounding the track to signal to his pupil. He was promptly hauled away by police, but of course his effort had been worth it.

Over the six years Cerutty coached him, from 1956 to 1962, Elliott went undefeated in 44 races over a mile and 1,500 metres, before retiring at just 22. Cerutty continued coaching until 1975, when one evening he sat on the sand dunes at Portsea, took a deep breath, and expired his last.

Both Con and I agreed Irish athletics could do with a Cerutty-like figure, particularly in distance running. There's nothing wrong with the coaches we have now or were blessed with over the years - from the late Eddie Hogan and Gerry Farnan to contemporaries like Jerry Kiernan and Dick Hooper. It just seems a man of Cerutty's greatness is somehow missing.

It may be that Ireland lost one of its best distance coaches to the US, as the case of John McDonnell, Mayo-born and-raised, would suggest. McDonnell's home for the past 40 year has been Fayetteville, where since 1972 he's been Arkansas University's head coach.

Like Cerutty, he's largely self-taught. After arriving in New York in 1964, he got an offer of a running scholarship at the little-known Southwestern Louisiana University. While there McDonnell developed a deep love of running, winning an American 3,000 metres title. He wouldn't share Cerutty's eccentricity, though he does like to spend time alone on his 2,500-acre ranch nearby Pryor, Oklahoma, herding his 650 head of cattle.

McDonnell is by far the most successful coach in US college history, winning 42 NCAA championships since 1984 between cross-country and indoor and outdoor track. Though he turns 70 next birthday, he has lost none of his enthusiasm for coaching, particularly when it comes to one of his star pupils, Alistair Cragg.

It's been a rough six months for Cragg since he failed to make the final of the 5,000 metres at last summer's World Championships in Osaka, a result that shattered his confidence.

McDonnell, however, has never once doubted Cragg's ability, and has been slowly rebuilding that confidence ahead of the all-important Beijing Olympics.

They decided to skip the indoor season (though Cragg did run one 5,000 metres - clocking a world-leading 13:32.01) and focus on cross-country, and Cragg's appearance in this afternoon's national championships in Belfast is eagerly anticipated.

At his best Cragg can run with anyone in the world, and it will be interesting to see how he goes against the best in Ireland.

Cragg repeatedly pays tribute to McDonnell, not just for his coaching abilities, but for his devotion to Cragg as a person, and this dedication, above anything else, is possibly what defines a great coach.

Anyway, as it turned out, Con had lent the Cerutty book to somebody else, and I'd have to call back to collect it. As if I needed an excuse to call back to one of the great coaches of another sort.

"Before you can call yourself a man you should be able to walk 100 miles in 48 hours, swim a mile and lift your own weight overhead - so ran a Cerutty mantra