Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya Jesse O’Connell (COL `04) takes a rest next to the Yates’ track. O’Connell has kept a fast and steady pace to the top of the collegiate running world and hopes to continue.
Jesse O’Connell (COL ’04) knows what he wants to do for the rest of his life. This should be comforting, since most of the people he is graduating with are still struggling to figure out their lives. But his career does not lend its self to security.
O’Connell wants to be a professional athlete – a professional runner to be exact. And while it is extremely difficult to make a career in any pro sport, running may one of the most difficult.
Running lacks the publicity, and thus the money, of other professional sports. So making a career as a runner alone is near impossible if you are not Marion Jones or Michael Johnson.
Yet if there is anyone who can succeed, it is O’Connell. His passion for the sport is infectious, his determination is intense and his talent is unquestionable.
O’Connell is one of the best runners to come through Georgetown in recent years. A four-time All-American and five-time Big East Conference Champion, O’Connell’s specialty is the 800-meter run, arguably the most difficult track event. Basically a two-lap sprint, the 800 requires both quickness and endurance, plus the ability to run through immense pain. Most runners hate the 800, but O’Connell loves it.
O’Connell has been running competitively since high school and it was there that he discovered the 800 was his event.
“Track is a pretty simple sport, you just get to the finish line before the other guy,” he says. “But once you learn your event, when you really understand it, then you start to run it well.”
If his results are an indication, O’Connell understands the 800 very well. In high school he won six Maryland state titles, and once he arrived on the Hilltop he only continued to improve. O’Connell was the Big East Outdoor 800m Champion his freshman year and has never looked back.
“Winning is habit forming,” he says. “Once you start to taste what it feels like, you don’t ever want it to stop.”
Throughout his Georgetown career, O’Connell has never let go of that feeling. He was a Junior National 800m champion in 2001, and he anchored the 3,200-meter relay team that won the Championship of America race at the Penn Relays, one of the most prestigious track events in the nation, during both his sophomore and senior years.
“It’s an amazing feeling to have a stadium full of 50,000 people cheering for what you and your teammates have done,” he says.
O’Connell had the option of going to a large state school where he could have run in front of packed stadiums on a regular basis and while he says Franklin Field in Philadelphia, where the Penn Relays are run, is his favorite track, he has no regrets about coming to Georgetown.
He knew when he was recruited to be a Hoya, he would not have the top-of-the-line facilities, yet he also knew he would be part of an outstanding program. O’Connell explains that what the Georgetown team lacks in size or facilities, it makes up for with “soul.”
He noted that running can be done anywhere and all tracks are basically the same, and while he would love to see a track on campus again, it is not necessary right away and that more than that he hopes that the program continues to “move in the right direction.”
“I would love to see the program get back to where we can compete as a team at the Big East meet,” he says. Right now, he admits, the track and field team is basically only a track team, and he wants to see the field portion develop because right now, as he puts it, “we hemorrhage points in the jumps and throws.” To really be able to compete as a team, he says, Georgetown needs more than a few outstanding individuals, but a well-rounded team.
That said, if he had it all to do over again, O’Connell says that even without an on-campus track – which existed on Kehoe Field when he was recruited – he would still choose to come to Georgetown.
“The positives outweigh the negative sides of life,” he says.
Although O’Connell has focused narrowly on his running career at Georgetown, he did express a hope that students could become more involved in campus life. He also wished something on campus could unite students together in a common cause. He recalls the years in the 1980s when the men’s basketball team gave every Hoya something to cheer about, but does not expect track to become the new rallying point.
And while his collegiate career is coming to a close, O’Connell has not seen the end of his success.
After commencement O’Connell will continue to do exactly what he has done for the last four years – train and race, representing Georgetown in the NCAA championships in June before heading to the Olympics trials in Sacramento, Calif. in July.
O’Connell hopes to quality for the U.S. team in the 800, traveling to Athens in August to represent his country.
But O’Connell is also aware that his chances of making the Olympic team are slim, so he has made back-up arrangements to race in Europe this summer in post-collegiate events.
There he hopes to catch the eye of a sponsor, someone who will pay for him to race on a full-time basis.
Again, O’Connell knows that there is stiff competition, especially in middle-distance events in Europe, and that the possibility of someone sponsoring him is not great. Yet he is not discouraged by the prospect.
“I just hope somebody gives me an opportunity,” he says. “I’ll continue to train and get in races when I can . I want to be someone promoters want to meet.”
O’Connell has made sacrifices throughout his career to get to where he is today and he will continue to do so if that is what it takes for him to be able to continue to do what he loves.
“I have a pretty good future in this sport,” he says. “I’m just going to focus what I have done and what I’m going to do.”