St. Patrick’s Boys’ Secondary School in Castleisland has signed up to participate in the Sky Sports Living for Sports Programme and welcomed their athlete /mentor, Kerry footballer, Darren O’Sullivan to the school last week.
Over the course of the year Darren will work with the school’s PE teacher Patrick McCarthy and will teach the first year students about The Six Keys to Success. These are the six life skills that athletes have identified as enabling them to achieve success in sport.
Valuable Life Skills
Darren and Patrick will work with the first year students and take them through the six keys to help them gain valuable life skills. The keys to success are: Mental Toughness; Hunger to Achieve; People Skills; Sports and Life Knowledge; Breaking Barriers and Planning for Success.
These six keys are designed to lead young people to develop valuable life skills that will help them in and outside of school, now and into the future.
Inspiring Presentation
On his first visit to the school, Darren introduced the programme to the students and gave an inspiring presentation on the huge influence sport has been to his life to date.
Darren grew up in London and played soccer with Queens Park Rangers. He moved to Kerry when he was 12 and then started playing Gaelic Football and very quickly he set his sights on the Kerry minor panel.
He played with the Kerry minors in 2003 at the age of 17 and reached the All Ireland semi-final and the following year reached the All Ireland final losing to Tyrone.
Hunger to Achieve
Darren explained how these experiences of defeat were invaluable for him as it instilled a hunger to achieve and laid the foundations for the great career that would follow. He told the students that ever before he experienced success he would have to suffer the heartache of defeat and they will experience similar experiences in life but it will make them stronger.
Wealth of Experience
Darren will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to this programme. He has four All Ireland Senior Championships: six Munster Championships; two National Football league Division1 titles; one All Star; one County Senior Football Championship; he has been selected to represent Ireland in International rules series against Australia and he has represented Munster in Interprovincial competition.
Both staff and students are looking forward to having Darren O’Sullivan as their athlete/mentor and working with him for the year.
