Winged Fist Advisory Board

George W. Anderson

Vice President, Operations, AlliedBarton Security Services, New York
Assistant Chief (retired), New York City Police Department
Co-Chair, Private Sector Liason Committee, International Association of Chiefs of Police
Vice Chair, ASIS International, NYC Chapter
Vice President, Ancient Order of Hibernians Division 1, Monroe, New York

George W. Anderson is currently a Vice President, Operations for AlliedBarton Security Services in New York City. Formerly the Commanding Officer of the NYPD Police Academy, Assistant Chief Anderson (Retired) began his career on patrol with the New York City Housing Police Department in January 1982 and became a member of the NYPD after the merger with the Housing Police in 1995. In his rise through the ranks of the NYPD, he was promoted to Deputy Inspector in 1998, Inspector in 2000, Deputy Chief in 2003 and Assistant Chief in August 2007.

Assistant Chief Anderson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Studies from the University of the State of New York Regents College, a Master of Science degree in Instructional Technology from New York Institute of Technology, and a Master of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from the State University of New York at Albany. He is currently the co-chair of the Private Sector Liaison Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Vice Chair of the New York City Chapter of ASIS International, and a member of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police.

George and his wife Kathryn have been married for 26 years, and they have one daughter, Kaitlyn, who among many other accomplishments is a competitive Irish step dancer who has competed in the All – Irelands in Kerry. An avid skier, he is a member of the NYPD Ski Club, and, of course, the NYPD Emerald Society. In 2012, he was elected to the position of Vice President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 1, Monroe, NY.

Wayne Baker

Westfield, N.J.
Vice-President, Shore Athletic Club
Email: wayne.f.baker@gmail.com

Trained in history at Lehigh University, Wayne is recognized as an authority on John J. Hayes and the early days of the marathon in the United States. In 2008, Wayne travelled to London; Carpi, Italy; and Toronto with Hayes' gold medal. He was instrumental in working with the London Marathon in their bringing together Hayes' medal and Dorando Pietri's Cup for the first time in a century. Wayne has assisted several authors and filmmakers in works on these topics including John Bryant, with his The Marathon Makers and Roger Robinson with a pair of article published in early 2007 on America's first marathon boom. Wayne was also a key in bringing public attention to the Johnny Hayes Collection, entrusted to the Shore Athletic Club by Hayes' daughter, Doris Hale.

Having spent much of his career in sales, Wayne has returned to school to become a teacher of mathematics. He writes regularly for a local newspaper and occasionally for running specialty publications. He currently resides in Westfield, NJ.

Hon. Michael J. Brennan

Justice, New York State Supreme Court,
Kings County (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
President, A.O.H, Division 3

A graduate of Curtis High School, (Staten Island, N.Y.), where he co-captained the track team (1958 - 1959), in his senior year, he belonged to the Staten Island Championship Team, and the same year won the 100 Yard Dash, earning him the title of the “Fastest Man on Staten Island.” He served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1969, rising from the rank of Private to Captain. In 1968 and 1969, he served in Vietnam, and was awarded the Bronze Star and Parachute Badge (Jump Wings).

Judge Brennan is a graduate of St. Peter's College, where he ran for the track team; St. John's University School of Law; N.Y.U. Graduate School of Law and the National Judicial College. He has been a judge for the last 25 years and an adjunct professor in the Sociology Department at Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y. for the past 31 years.

In 1988 Judge Brennan was named “Staten Island Advance Sportsman of the Year,” and in 2007, he was inducted into the Curtis High School Hall of Fame. He is also a past president of the Staten Island Athletic Club and the current president of Division 3 of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He is also the founder of the All Kazoo Marching Band. On April 1st, 2009, Judge Brennan played center for the Washington General's Basketball Team.

Steve Cottrell

Nevada City, California
Producer & Writer, Celtic Park Productions
Email: sheridan.documentary@gmail.com

Steve is a former sports writer and weekly newspaper editor, currently producing and writing a documentary chronicling the life of Martin Sheridan. With Olympic great Al Oerter and famed sports announcer Marty Glickman as co-hosts, Steve earlier took on a project documenting the life of Bud Houser –– 1924 Olympic discus and shot gold medalist, and ‘28 discus gold medalist. It was that project that led him to the untold story of Martin Sheridan –– the greatest Irish-born Olympian of all time.

Steve lives in Nevada City, California, nestled on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. From 1992-2008, he served on the local city council, including a term as mayor, but is now fully involved with production of the Martin Sheridan documentary.

A sampler of the pending Martin Sheridan documentary may be found by
visiting: www.postimpressions.net/MartinSheridan.html

David Davis

Los Angeles, California
Author/Writer/Reporter
Email: doubled62@sbcglobal.net

David Davis has written for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the New York Times, the Village Voice and the Forward. His feature story about boxer Jerry Quarry, which originally appeared L.A. Weekly, was included in the Best American Sports Writing anthology (1996 edition). Currently, he is a contributing writer for the Amateur Athletic Foundation's SportsLetter (www.aafla.org).

Fergus Hanna

Rostrevor, Co. Down
Author & Founder, Home & Away
Email: fergiehanna@googlemail.com

Born in Co. Down, Fergus Hanna lived and worked in New York as a sports writer for The Irish Echo, The Irish Voice and The Irish Emigrant in the 1980s and 90s. In 2000, he founded the publication Home & Away, to fill a void in the Irish sports coverage of the existing New York based Irish-American publications. Fergus is currently living in Rostrevor, County Down, and finishing a history of the New York Gaelic Athletic Association, called “The Lost Green Field,” which he hopes to have published in 2010.

Dave Johnson

Swathmore, PA.
Director,
Penn Relays, University of Pennsylvania
Email: davidsj@pobox.upenn.edu

Dave Johnson is the Frank Dolson Director of Penn Relays, in his 15th year as Director as we approach the 2010 Relays. Before that, he was involved with the Relays for 18 years, working first with the Sports Information operations and then for seven years as Associate Director of the Relays. He worked as Statistical Editor at Track & Field News for eight years in the 1980s, and has served on their world rankings panel since 1981. He now serves as the Steering Committee Chair of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, as well as Men's Watch Committee Chair for the Bowerman Award.

Alan S. Katchen

Columbus, Ohio
Author & Professor
Email: akatchen@capital.edu

Alan S. Katchen has taught the history of education at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at Howard University. He served for more than twenty years as a regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. Since his retirement from the ADL, he has been an adjunct professor of history at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and was awarded the J. Kenneth Doherty Memorial Fellowship of USA Track and Field to research his recently published book, “Abel Kiviat – National Champion: Twentieth Century Track & Field and the Melting Pot.”

Joe Keaney

Boxborough, Massachusetts
Middlesex Sheriff's Office
Author, Historian & Athlete
Email: keaneyjr@comcast.net

Joe Keaney is a 19-year veteran of the Middlesex Sheriff's Office in Massachusetts, where he has spent most of his career working in Pre-release, House-arrest, and Electronic Monitoring programs. He is a former high school and college distance runner who has completed 17 Marathons. He holds a B.A. in Sports Management and an M.A. in Human Services from The University of Massachusetts. He has been researching late nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish and Irish-American athletes for the past seven years and is presently working on a book about them.

Walter J. Kehoe

Syosset, New York and
New Port Richey, Florida
Genealogist & Historian
Email: walterjvk@gmail.com

A native of New York City, Walter is a retired Master Electrician. Since retiring in 1995, he has devoted much of his time to his avocations of New York City history and genealogy, which he has been doing for over fifty years. He is occasionally distracted from these fields by his life long interest in antique automatic musical instruments, which he collects, repairs and restores.

Mr. Kehoe has lectured on Irish and New York genealogy and mechanical music. He has published articles in the Journal of the Irish Family History Forum, the web site of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society and in publications of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, of which he is a Trustee. Walter has served as the director of the Plainview Family History Center, director of the West Pasco Genealogy Society and the vice president of The Irish Family History Forum. As a founding member of the Long Island TMG Users Group, he has served as its delegate to the Genealogy Federation of Long Island. He is currently president of the Computer Genealogy Society of Long Island.

Walter and his wife of 41 years, Kay, have two daughters and sons-in-law, Maureen and husband Scott Sweeney and Kathy and husband Bob Phillips, and three grandsons; Scott and Sean Sweeney and Jackson Philips.

Bill Mallon, M.D.

Durham, North Carolina
Co-Founder & Past-President,
International Society of Olympic Historians
Email: bill1729@gmail.com

Dr. Mallon is a former professional golfer and an orthopaedic surgeon whose life-long interest in the Olympic Games became a second career while he was in medical school at Duke University. With Erich Kamper, he co-authored The Golden Book of the Olympic Games, and with Ian Buchanan he wrote Quest for Gold: The Encyclopaedia of American Olympians. He is the author of a series of books on the earliest Olympic Games (1896-1920), and is a founding member and Past-President of the International Society of Olympic Historians and former editor of the ISOH journal, Journal of Olympic History. He has written a total of twenty-four books on the subject of the Olympic Games.

Dr. Mallon served as an historical consultant to the organizing committees of both the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics, and for his contributions to the Olympic Movement, he was awarded the Olympic Order in Silver in 2001. In his medical career, he is a shoulder surgeon and the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery. Dr. Mallon is the proud owner of a Chocolate Labrador Retriever named Martin Sheridan.

Kevin McCarthy, Ph.D.

Cappoquin, Co. Waterford
Author, Educator & Historian
Email: kpec@gofree.indigo.ie

Before he became an Inspector of History (post primary) with the Irish Department of Education and Science, Dr. McCarthy taught English, French and History at the Christian Brothers School in Dungarvan for twenty years. He is now a Senior Inspector, working mainly in History and in Citizenship Education. He has written two commercial post primary history textbooks for the Irish curriculum, Footseteps in Time (1997) and Concise History (1998). Kevin has also written significant portions of four books on the history of his native Cappoquin, Co. Waterford.

A (taciturn) member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, the core research for his newest book, Gold, Silver and Green: The Irish Olympic Journey 1896 – 1924 (Cork University Press, December 2009) was carried out for his Ph.D. between 2003 and 2007. This new book details the struggles, on the track and off it, of Irish and Irish-American athletes to gain success and national recognition in the Olympic Games before 1924. The Irish-American story is covered quite substantially, ranging through James B. Connolly, Martin Sheridan, John Flanagan, Johnny Hayes and Dan Ahearn, as well as discussing the impact of Irish-American administrative and political figures like James L. Sullivan, 'Boss' Croker and John Devoy on the Olympic story during the same period.

Kevin lives in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford with his wife Patricia, and their two daughters, Elaine and Carole.

Larry M. McCarthy, Ph.D.

South Orange, New Jersey
Chairman, NY Gaelic Athletic Association
Associate Professor, Seton Hall University

Born in County Cork, Dr. McCarthy holds a Ph.D. in Sport Management from Ohio State University. He is an associate professor of management at the W. Paul Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University, teaching in the Center for Sport Management, where he serves as the Director of the Institute of International Business. Previously he served as the coordinator of the Graduate Sport Management Program in the Department of Recreation & Sport Management at Georgia Southern University. He holds an M.A. from New York University (NYU) and a B.Ed. from the National University of Ireland (NUI).

Dr. McCarthy’s research includes; professional sport franchises, cross-cultural studies, international sport management and Irish sport in the USA. His work has been published in national and international journals and he has presented his work at regional, national and international conferences. He is a co-author of the text Sport Promotion and Sales Management. Dr. McCarthy was a founding member of the Sport Marketing Association and was appointed as an envoy to the Olympic Council of Ireland for the Centennial Olympic Games by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. He is the curent chairman of the Gaelic Athletic Association of Greater New York (NYGAA). He and his wife Barbara have two children, Conor and Shane.

Turlough McConnell

New York, N.Y.
Irish America Magazine
Email: tmcconnell@IrishAmerica.com

Born in County Donegal, Turlough has lived in New York for 35 years. Since 1995, Turlough has been an important contributor to Irish America Magazine, both as a writer and producer as well as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. He is also the Executive Director of the US-Ireland Forum.

In addition to Irish America Magazine, many prominent U.S. companies and organizations have come to rely on Turlough for his special talent for mixing creative planning with traditional and interactive media into communications services, exhibitions, live events, and multimedia shows.

Over the years, Turlough has worked with such national and international organizations and institutions as The Governments of Ireland and Northern Ireland; the United Nations; The John F. Kennedy Center; Boston College; Pfizer Inc., and the South Street Seaport Museum. He makes his home in New York City and is the proud father of Darragh and Paul, who both work in the arts and creative management in New York and London.

Turlough was recently profiled by the Derry Journal, in a story about his current projects: "When Our Turlough Went from Here to There."

Mick Rice

Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland
Sports Writer, Historian & Athlete
Email: Mick@AthenryAC.com

Mick is a writer on Irish athletics and has recently published a series of articles on the legends of Irish distance running in Irish Runner magazine. He is currently researching the life and sporting careers of three outstanding Irish long distance runners who were active both in Ireland and the USA at the beginning of the 20th Century, namely Thomas Hynes, John J. Daly and John J. Joyce. Daly and Joyce were both prominent members of the Irish-American Athletic Club.

Mick is also an active ultra-marathon runner and has represented Ireland twice at senior international level, most recently at the International Association of Ultra Runners 100km World Cup in 2008 in Italy . In August 2009 Mick won the inaugural Connemara 100 Mile Road Race in a time of 14:31:53 and only five weeks later recorded a time of 15:26:02 for the 100 mile split at the Niort 24 Hour race in France. Mick currently serves as Captain of the Athenry Athletics Club.

Mark Will-Weber

Bethlehem, P.A.
Writer, Coach & Runner
Email: coachwebs@aol.com

A former senior editor/writer at Runner’s World, Will-Weber has published three books on running with Breakway Books—including The Quotable Runner which was later translated into Japanese. His latest book is Run for the Diamonds: 100 Years of Foot-racing in Berwick, Pennsylvania, a history of that intriguing event. In addition to his books and Runner’s World articles, Will-Weber has also been published in the New York Times (on-line), The Irish Runner, and The Runner’s Gazette.

Will-Weber formerly coached at Moravian College in Bethlehem, where he produced four NCAA Division 3 champions and numerous All-Americans. One of Will-Weber’s runners—Heidi Wolfsberger—qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Boston where she finished 28th overall. Will-Weber is presently coaching at Liberty High School in Bethlehem.

Long past his prime racing years when he clocked 2:22:30 for the marathon and 1:06:52 for the half-marathon, Will-Weber continues to slug it out on the roads and, very occasionally, over the cross-country course.

Winged Fist Advisory Board Members