GAME TIME

Erin Donohue Hometown: Haddonfield

BY STEVE SEARS STAFF WRITER

AREA - Erin LiVecchi – better known to Garden State sports and track and field fans (and how we will refer to her in this article) as Erin Donohue, is reminiscing as she celebrates her 40th birthday on the day of this June 2023 “NJ Starz” interview.

“It (Haddonfield) is a great town to be from,” Donohue says. “They were very, very proud of my accomplishments, and actually had a little parade when I made the Olympic team. I met a lot of the kids, and some of the parents come up to me occasionally and say things like, ‘You signed my shoe back in 2008.’ And I ask, ‘Wow! And you held on to it that long?”

Indeed. And why not? Yes, there was the 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing, China for Donohue, but there was also twice being named the New Jersey Athlete of the year when competing as a runner and javelin thrower while at Haddonfield Memorial High School. She also found time to play varsity basketball for the Haddonfield Bulldawgs her freshman through junior years, the team winning titles during her first two seasons on the court.

All this prior to her University of North Carolina collegiate career and the before-mentioned Olympics. More to come.

This special morning, however, one of her three daughters woke her up singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Donohue says, “I do feel very fortunate every day. I am very fortunate to have three very healthy and charming young daughters, and a great husband. Life is good.”

Donohue was born and raised in Haddonfield and attended the school system in that community. Her parents, Edward and Eva, still live in Haddonfield, and Donohue was the eldest of three siblings. Her younger brothers are Brian and Eric.

Donohue says, “I was very fortunate to have parents who were pretty low key. My dad was a runner back in the 1970s in high school and at Glassboro State, which is now Rowan University. He was a pretty ac- complished runner and got me into it pretty early.”

Edward Donohue would take his only daughter over the Delaware River to historic Franklin Field in Philadelphia, where the best runners in the world competed. It made an immediate impression on her.

“I think with anyone who lives in the Philadelphia area, a lot of their association with track and field is the Penn Relays because it is such a big track meet. So many high schools and middle schools participate, and it is one of the biggest, most exciting track meets you can go to in the whole world. You also get professional level runners doing relays, and it was just a good way to get into it. My dad would take me over because it was only 15 to 20 minutes from our house, and that was one of the first big track meets that I got to go to and see all the different events. That really got me into it.”

While at Haddonfield Memorial High School, Donohue twice won the National Scholastic Outdoor Championship (setting the New Jersey high school and national meet record of 4:42 in 2001) in the mile. Donohue also was a Nike National Indoor mile champion in 2001, won 15 out of 16 outdoor titles, nine Meet of Champions titles as a runner, and came close on a few occasions to snaring Meet of Champions javelin titles.

The attention on her was great, but Donohue handled it well. In fact, she prepared herself for it. “I had already put a lot of pressure just on myself to perform well, so I knew there were a lot of people probably always looking at me and expecting me to do well, and to win all the time. The outside pressure was definitely there, but I was very driven and competitive just on my own, so the outside pressure I would say did not bother me.”

As previously mentioned, Donohue also starred on the hardwood at Haddonfield. As a guard, she played on clubs that won Group 1 state titles over Bloomfield Tech High School when she was a freshman and sophomore in 1998 and 1999.

After her junior season, when she had reached the 1,000-point mark in career points, she decided to concentrate solely on running. “When it became very clear that track and field was where I was going to go, I decided to run indoor track my senior year,” she says.

Additionally, Donohue had already committed to being a North Carolina Tar Heel by the fall of her senior year. She explains. “One of the things I liked about it was just that it is a beautiful campus, and it is a highly regarded public university. The academics were there, and then the thing that really sealed it, too, was just the team down there. I could see this team coming together that was just going to be great.” And, typical of her demeanor, Donohue wanted to head to a school where she would be challenged every day at practice. “And I certainly was,” she adds.

While at the University of North Carolina, Donohue seven times was named an All-American runner, and snared for herself an ACC javelin title. She was also an ACC Outdoor 800m and the NCAA Eastern Regional 1,500m outdoor title winner.

Following her time at UNC, Donohue interned at Nike in Beaverton, Oregon, and continued training there, and in 2007 qualified for the USA World Outdoor team in the 1,500m. A year later, she finished second in the 1,500m at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials and was headed to Beijing. In 2010, she made the U.S. World Indoor Championship team in the 1,500m, and after surgery prevented her from competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2012, in 2015 she qualified for the U.S. National Championships in the 800m, and then qualified for the 2016 Olympic Trials in both the 800m and 1600m.

Donohue retired from running professionally in 2016 but keeps active by running the streets of her hometown, and often attends track and field events locally.

Most recently, Donohue - a member of both the Haddonfield Memorial High School Hall of Fame and the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA)\

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Gallagher Bollinger Hall of Fame - was named to the Penn Relays Wall of Fame Class of 2020 at Franklin Field. Things had come full circle for her. She had competed at the famed venue while in high school and as a collegian, the high point winning three Penn Relays Championships in 2003 with fellow North Carolina University teammates Shalane Flanagan, Anissa Gainey, and Alice Schmidt. “I had a lot of success as a college athlete there,” Donohue says. “We won three relays, and I would look at oth- er relay teams (on the wall), and I would think, ‘Our relay team could really be up there.’

I was on a team with two other Olympians, so I was a little bit surprised that I got in as individual. But you have some of the best athletes in the world that compete there, so when I look at who else is on the Wall of Fame, I was very flattered to be put up there with them.”

Donohue still lives in Haddonfield, and she and her husband Anthony will celebrate nine years of marriage this September. The couple has three daughters: Juliet, 4; Sophia, 2 ½; and a newborn, Maria. Donohue currently works on the Corporate Internal Audit Team for Campbell Soup. Looking at your Donohue’s accomplishments, you can tell that she was an athlete that, no matter what race she was in or whatever athletic event she competed in, she never gave up. Erin Donohue gave her all.

“That would be true,” she says. “I would say I’m very competitive, and anything I do I try 100% to give the best of my ability every time.”