Before his coaching days, Donahue attended NU as an undergraduate and set records that were all eventually broken by athletes he later helped coach.
He helped make Northeastern the top throwing school in New England during his tenure. Donahue was inducted to the Northeastern Hall of Fame in 1993, but you could have found all that out just by looking him up on GoNU.com.
Joe Donahue was more than just a throwing coach at this university. In the words of his colleague, head men’s and women’s track and field coach Sherman Hart, Donahue was a friend, big brother and a mentor.
Hart first met Donahue when he was a student at Northeastern back in the early 70s. Donahue was hired as a coach in 1963, and even back then, Donahue was all about the black and red.
“Joe loved Northeastern,” Hart said. “This was his second family, this was part of his family. His wife and his kids, they will all say the same thing, this was Joe’s family as well.”
Hart said that one of Donahue’s best attributes was his closeness to everyone on his teams. It didn’t matter if the athlete was a thrower, jumper, sprinter or distance runner, Joe would sit and talk with anybody who needed him.
“He would sit down at a track meet and talk to any athlete on the team so he wasn’t just my throwing coach, he was a coach for the program,” Hart said. “He would try his best to guide students in the right direction and talk to them and we’d talk a lot of hours about how athletes were doing and which direction they should be going in, not just athletically, but personally and academically.”
When it came time for Donahue’s wake last week, his family figured only Donahue’s throwers would show up. Instead, everyone on the team wanted to come, because Donahue had touched all of their lives, in one way or another.
Donahue coached Nate Hunter for seven years. The two started working together when Hunter was still in high school and they continued until the end of his career at Northeastern.
“To let me into his arms like that at such an early stage just showed how much he cared about the sport,” Hunter said. “Throwing was such a big part of his life that if he could just shed some light on anyone to make them better, he was proud of that. I had such a hard time competing in high school. He made me believe that I was someone a lot better than I even thought I was at such an early stage.”
Under the guidance of Donahue, Hunter achieved All-American status during the 2008-2009 season.
“I used to have a fear of competing and that was what really held me back,” Hunter said. “It wasn’t so much where I was athletically or my ability in the ring. He could dive into a problem and figure it out inside your own head before you even know it. I’d get into the ring and I’d just look at him and we could communicate with each other just by looking at each other. We had great chemistry and a great connection. He was an amazing guy.”
The Northeastern track and field program lost one of its great leaders.
Sherman Hart’s words may have captured Donahue best.
“Joe was a person who cared about everybody no matter what race, color, whatever,” Hart said. “He was just one of those types of people that would go out of his way to do anything for anybody. I just think he was just a really great person overall.”
