Seamus McGelligot

The real story is that Seamus was a great competitor, a leader on a great team, and a man who was loved and respected by all those who knew him. Tom Donnelly, a man I have infinite respect for, views Seamus as one of the best he has ever coached, both as an athlete and a person. Seamus's death was tragic for his family, friends, teammates, the track community, and humanity as whole. He should be remembered for the wonderful things he did on the track and cross country course, and for the positive impact he had with all those around him. This was the true essence of Seamus, and anything else need not be discussed.

I only knew Seamus for a short time and I can second the previous comments. He was truely a great guy.

He died from carbon monoxide poisoning that was ruled an accident. Anything else is pure speculation - only Seamus knows what really happened.

The real story is that Seamus was a phenomenal athlete and an even better person. He went to my highschool and my dad was his coach there. Along with Tom Donnelly and John Burns, Seamus is the best to ever run for our school and certainly one of the best to ever run for Haverford College. When I was in highschool, Seamus would come back and run with us and I totally looked up to the guy. He ran with us. There was no ego where he had to come back and pound the HS kids. He never hammered the pace. He encouraged us and made me believe I could be better than I was. He made me want to be a better runner. When I was a freshman in college, Seamus pulled the mythical double - winning the DIII XC Nationals on Saturday and coming back on Monday and making All American in the DI race. It is something that people still talk about today. I have a photo of Seamus hanging over my desk at home and he is one of the big reasons why I go out the door and run everyday. Quite simply Seamus was and still is one of my heroes. He is dearly missed by many.

Brian -

Just a tip here, when you're writing about what a great person somebody was, don't write about yourself instead.

Moral of the McElligott story: Don't start a lawnmower in an enclosed space. Sounds callous but it's true, I read it somewhere once. Most lawnmowers spew out more CO than the filthiest car engines. Of course, most lawnmowers also don't catch on fire when you try to start them--Seamus hit the unlucky lottery on that one. Given the circumstances of his untimely passing there is absolutely NO WAY it could have been anything but an accident. It seems that's what people are hinting at by asking for "the real story."

Thanks, thats real enough.

Hey Platinum,

Just a tip, when someone is writing about what another person meant to them, put a cork in it.

Brian wrote nothing to toot his own horn in his post.

As a medical student, I knew Seamus's father. The reality is that Seamus had problems with depression and his father is open about his son's death being a suicide.

There is no disgrace in this, we can learn from it and hopefully help others before it is too late.

My bad, and you're absolutely right. For whatever reasons, press reports at the time of his death played up the freak accident angle.

When I was in High School, we compete against LaSalle High School in PA. They had an award that they gave out to the top 3 runners in the league that year. The Award was the Seamus McElligot Award and we received several pictures of him as a runner at LaSalle High School, Haverford College and him runing a Marathon in Califorina. Also they gave us a few paper of a summary of him as a runner and as a person. It was a nice little award.