Jim was the first Gaelic Footballer of the Year and captained Derry to the All-Ireland senior football final in 1958. He was a multi-talented and versatile sportsman who was also an international basketball player, a provincial long jump champion and a colours athlete at the then Loughborough College of Education.
A former teacher, Jim was also responsible for diligently teaching hundreds of students who have gone on to become exceptional managers and coaches at the highest level.
Since he passed away in 2023, Jim’s family have produced his memoirs, which include details of his time at Loughborough. They discovered that Jim had been writing his memoirs since 2013. His daughter Maeve formed a small committee of former students and friends of Jim’s and together they have published Only The Sky Above Me.
Bolstering the memoirs, they included some articles from Jim’s days as a columnist in the Sunday Independent in the 1960s, plus many coaching articles and talks given over the years. The result is a 252 page book of memories and 64 photographs each with a story to tell.
Jim attended Loughborough in 1952-53 to study Physical Education at postgraduate level.