Frank O’Mara (1960–)

Frank O’Mara was a star distance runner for the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) who competed in the Olympics three times for his native Ireland. O’Mara later was an executive for Alltel in Little Rock (Pulaski County), which had been founded in Arkansas in 1946 as Allied Telephone Co. O’Mara was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2009 at age forty-eight. In 2024, his book Bend Don’t Break: A Memoir of Endurance was released by O’Brien Press of Dublin, Ireland.

Frank O’Mara was born on July 17, 1960, in Limerick, Ireland. He attended St. Munchin’s College’s prep school in Limerick, where he ran track and played rugby. As a high school athlete, he won the Irish schools’ 1,500-meter run in a record time of 3:58.2.

His father operated several businesses through the years, including a bottling plant. “I was brought up working holidays and weekends in a bottling plant,” O’Mara later wrote. “Initially, I fed the massive glass-bottle washing machine, a particularly arduous task. I graduated to driving the forklift, which I found easier than standing in front of the giant mouth of a washer as it ingested a dozen bottles at a time and disgorged steam at skin-sizzling temperatures. Eventually I made sales calls in a pickup truck. On occasion I made collections calls as well. I became well-versed in the vagaries of business.”

O’Mara was recruited to the University of Arkansas by John McDonnell, an Irish native who built a track dynasty in Fayetteville. St. Munchin’s boarding school in Ireland had earlier produced Niall O’Shaughnessy, McDonnell’s first All-American distance runner at UA. O’Mara turned down offers from American track powers such as Villanova and Providence in order to run for McDonnell.

O’Mara became the first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) outdoor champion for McDonnell in 1983 when he ran 3:40.5 in the 1,500-meter race. O’Mara was the university’s first NCAA outdoor champion since Clyde Scott of Smackover (Union County) won a hurdles competition in 1948. That same year, O’Mara was on the first Arkansas team to win a Championship of America title at the Penn Relays, where he anchored the distance medley relay and 4×1,500-meter medley relay teams to victory. O’Mara was named the Penn Relays’ most valuable track performer.

As a Fayetteville-based professional athlete, he later won world championships in the 3,000-meter race in 1987 and 1991. O’Mara’s professional track career took him to fifty-six countries, but he continued to make his home in Arkansas. He ran for Ireland in the Olympics in 1984 at Los Angeles; 1988 at Seoul, South Korea; and 1992 at Barcelona, Spain. O’Mara was a commentator for Irish television during subsequent summer Olympics.

O’Mara graduated from UA with an engineering degree. While running as a professional, he also earned a master’s degree in business and a law degree from the university. After more than a dozen years of traveling the world, O’Mara retired from professional track. In January 1997, O’Mara joined Alltel and moved from Fayetteville to Little Rock with his wife, Patty O’Mara. The couple had three sons—Jack, Colin, and Harry.

“My tenure began when the wireless industry was in its infancy,” O’Mara wrote. “Over the next decade, Alltel became one of the largest wireless, or mobile network, carriers in the United States with nearly 15 million customers and $10 billion in annual revenues. In two years, I was a corporate officer leading the human resources team. I later found myself in charge of the customer service, sales and marketing teams. The wireless mobile network industry in the 2000s turned out to be a great outlet for someone hoping to keep his competitive juices flowing.” In Little Rock, O’Mara also served as a volunteer coach for Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys.

Verizon Wireless completed its purchase of Alltel in January 2009. O’Mara worked for several years for other telecommunications firms before retiring from the corporate world to focus on his battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.

At the time of his induction, he told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “I truly love Arkansas. I don’t aspire to live anywhere else….I had the great fortune of marrying a Little Rock girl, and that helped keep me in Arkansas, too. My wife’s great-grandmother was an O’Sullivan from Kerry so my kids are 9/16th Irish. I thoroughly enjoyed my athletic career. It has been a wonderful decision to make our home here. I don’t regret it for a moment.”

In September 2021, UA named a new track and field training center the Frank O’Mara Track & Field High Performance Center. The building is on the south end of John McDonnell Field in Fayetteville.

For additional information:
Clancy, Sean. “Frank O’Mara.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 19, 2024, pp. 1D, 8D. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/may/19/frank-omara/ (accessed March 11, 2025).

Clay, Jack. “‘Bend, Don’t Break’: A Q&A with Frank O’Mara.” Arkansas Times, June 23, 2024. https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2024/06/23/bend-dont-break-a-qa-with-frank-omara (accessed March 11, 2025).

Holt, Bob. “Luck of the Razorbacks.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 21, 2013. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/feb/21/luck-razorbacks-20130221/ (accessed March 11, 2025).

O’Mara, Frank. Bend Don’t Break: A Memoir of Endurance. Dublin, Ireland: O’Brien Press, 2024.

Rex Nelson
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette