Mick O'Connell was the first name on the Kerry sporting Mount Rushmore on this morning's OTB AM, and there aren't many who would argue against his worthy inclusion.
The 83-year-old Valentia Island native lined out with the Kingdom for 19 seasons, picking up four All-Ireland senior medals in the process, to add to 12 Munster and six National League crowns.
O'Connell was also Footballer of the Year in 1962, and is widely considered one of the greatest to ever play the game. Eoin Sheahan chose him as his number one pick for the Kerry Mount Rushmore, and had no hesitation in doing so.
"Mick O'Connell is Don Vito Corleone. Born on an island, and you do not mess with Mick O'Connell. He has got everything you need to be a legend - he's mysterious, he's enigmatic.
"He's also unbelievably emblematic of everything you want to see in a Kerry footballer. A superb high-fielder, a superb kicker of the ball, he only won four All-Ireland's.
"I think he is somewhat unlucky to have been born in the generation he was. 1959 was his first All-Ireland, captain at the age of 22. [He] immediately is recognised as one of the best to ever do it, and that is represented in him being named on both the Team of the Century and Team of the Millennium in midfield.
"Then you just get into the pride of place he has in his islands, the Valentia Islands, and how many opportunities in his life he passed up to stay put on the island.
"That bridge wasn't built until the early seventies, so he was rowing to and from the mainland to get to training. Notoriously [he] did not celebrate any All-Ireland's, [and] left Sam Maguire after him in the dressing room in 1959."
O'Connell also has a poem written about him by great Kerry poet Brendan Kennelly...
"He had to reach the island in the winter gale
He pushed the little boat
Over the rough stones till she came afloat:
You’d swear he could see nothing when he hoisted sail
And cut the dark. Once, a grey shape blurred
Above his head while pitch black water slapped
And tried to climb over the side but dropped
Into the sea, thwarted. In time he heard
The special thunder of the island shore,
He hauled the boat in, sheltered near a rock
And smiled to hear the sea’s defeated roar;
Breathing as though the air were infinitely sweet,
He watched the mainland where the hard wind struck.
The island clay felt good beneath his feet,
A man undeceived by victory or defeat."
Kieran Donaghy added that people in Kerry just wanted to see the magical Mick O'Connell play in his heyday.
"What they want to talk about is the people that made their sandwiches and filled their flasks of tea and got on the ghost train and went up to Dublin to see this mercurial Mick O'Connell cantering around Croke Park, with more style and panache than anybody else out there.
"He is a mysterious man. My Dad came down from Tyrone one time on a trip and he got the notion in his head - he wanted to meet Mick O'Connell and he wanted to meet Maurice Fitzgerald.
"He met them all in one day, and when I say that he did not stop talking about that day for months and years afterwards, it's an understatement.
"Literally into the car, down to Valentia, across on the bridge, and then knocking on doors looking for this Mick O'Connell. The amount of people that do that, and Mick is an amazing character.
"Even that old footage of him kicking the ball off the wall, how high he gets up into the air, how classy he was kicking it. If you think now if you put him in the beautiful new predators and you gave him a brand new ball, can you imagine?
"He'd make it talk, he'd be almost like a Ciarán McDonald type player around the middle of the field, soaring over everybody catching kick-outs.
"And then being able to kick points from long distance, and spray passes around the place on the inside or outside of either boot I would say, he had that level of ability."
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
