Keeping Up With the World's Fastest Human

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Posted on July 14, 2017

Marketing and Communications

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#SouthSuccessStories is an ongoing series featuring University of South Alabama alumni who are life-savers, innovators, game-changers, music-makers and creative-thinkers, successful in their careers and supportive of their communities.

Gr谩inne O鈥橠ea goes through passports the way her clients go through shoes. She keeps running out of space for visa stamps from the countries she visits. 鈥淭hey fill up quite quickly with all my travels,鈥� she said.

O鈥橠ea, who pronounces her first name 鈥淕RON-yuh,鈥� came from Raphoe, Ireland (population about 1,150), to the University of South Alabama on a track and field athletic scholarship in 1998. She left in 2006, with a bachelor鈥檚 degree in physical education and a master鈥檚 in exercise science, to take a summer job with Pace Sports Management in London.

She鈥檚 still at Pace, helping to manage the careers of more than 50 of the world鈥檚 top track and field athletes 鈥� including the most famous of them all, star sprinter Usain Bolt. 鈥淚 love the industry, and I love what I鈥檓 doing,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 love the company I work for because it鈥檚 quite a small, close-knit group. We all get along very, very well.鈥�

From her base in London, she goes wherever her clients go, to competitions in Monaco, Greece and elsewhere across Europe, in Rio de Janeiro, in Qatar, in Beijing and Shanghai, in New York and Boston, and everywhere else the global sport of track and field takes her. 鈥淭here鈥檚 not a lot of opportunity for walking around all these places,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut you do have a little bit of time to get a little bit of a taste of the world that we live in.鈥�

Sightseeing takes a back seat to helping her athletes. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e there just to make everything else easy for them so they can concentrate on what they鈥檙e there to do,鈥� O鈥橠ea said from her hotel room in Boston, where she had traveled for the adidas Boost Boston Games. 鈥淟ike today, I鈥檝e got the phone numbers of family members so the athlete can focus on the race, and I鈥檝e got their tickets for their mom and their dad and their uncle and their brother and whatever.鈥�

Everyone on the Pace staff is a former (or, in one case, current) competitive track and field athlete. At South, O鈥橠ea ran 800-meter, 1,500-meter and cross-country races. Current 91短视频 Head Coach Paul Brueske was a teammate, competing in the hammer throw and shot put.

O鈥橠ea treasured her seven years at South. 鈥淚 was enjoying being a part of the University, so I wasn鈥檛 rushing through to get out of there,鈥� she said. Dr. Joel Erdmann helped give her an idea of where her life path might lead.

Erdmann, now South鈥檚 athletics director, was a member of the Health, Physical Education and Leisure Studies Department (now Health, Kinesiology and Sport) from 1995 to 2002 as an assistant and then associate professor. 鈥淗e was really passionate about sports administration,鈥� O鈥橠ea said. She got interested, too. 鈥淚 came away from that still not really realizing where I was going or what field I would get into, but certainly there was the passion there that really resonated with me.鈥�

Erdmann remembers her as a student and has kept in contact. 鈥淭he impression she made on me was that she was an incredibly bright young lady who had all those intangible characteristics that you look for in a young adult that will likely lead them to success,鈥� he said. 鈥淪he had tremendous relationship skills with her peers, her teammates and her classmates. Always an upbeat and positive attitude.鈥�

In O鈥橠ea鈥檚 last year at South, an old friend called. She and Ricky Simms came from the same area and ran as youths for the Finn Valley Athletics Club in Stranoriar, County Donegal, Ireland. Simms had become a sports agent and a director at Pace. Two of his clients, athletes from Kenya, were running that year in Mobile鈥檚 Azalea Trail Run, a top U.S. 10K road race. Could she find them an apartment near a supermarket, a park (for workouts) and a church?

鈥淲hen I managed to do all that,鈥� O鈥橠ea said, 鈥淩icky sent me an email and said, 鈥楾hanks a million for your help. That was superb. And what are your plans now?鈥欌�� He offered her the summer job at Pace that launched her career.

O鈥橠ea markets her athletes. On their behalf, she fishes for endorsement deals and such perks as free use of a car and free access to a gym during events. She works with race organizers, negotiating appearance fees and trying to place her clients in races. Pace represents athletes from Jamaica, Kenya, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The client roster includes such stars as Matthew Centrowitz of the United States, the 2016 Olympics 1,500 meter champion, and Somali-born Sir Mo Farah of the United Kingdom, the 2016 Olympics 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter champion. None is more in demand than Bolt, 100-meter and 200-meter world record holder and exuberant lover of life.

鈥淗e鈥檚 actually very well-liked in the sport, whether it鈥檚 among his peers or the organizers or everyone,鈥� O鈥橠ea said. 鈥淗e鈥檚 really a genuinely very nice guy. Very polite. Very mannerly. Good respect for women. He鈥檚 honestly a true gentleman.鈥�

At photo shoots, she said, she makes sure to bring a soccer ball, a PlayStation video game console, maybe some dominoes so Bolt can stay loose during the downtimes. 鈥淗e just likes to have a fun life,鈥� she said. 鈥淒oesn鈥檛 want things to be too serious or too stressful.鈥�

Even when she鈥檚 not hanging out with the world鈥檚 fastest human, O鈥橠ea finds her job so fascinating that she can鈥檛 imagine doing anything else. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really nice,鈥� she said, 鈥渢o get up every day and really enjoy what you do.鈥�

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