Patrick Andrew "Pat" Clohessy AM (born 16 May 1933)[1] is an Australian runner and distance running coach.
Clohessy grew up in Muswellbrook, New South Wales and Tamworth, New South Wales due to his father Patrick being the postmaster with Postmaster-General's Department in these rural towns.[2] He took up running when he joined the Muswellbrook Athletics Club in 1953.[3] He had early success in winning the 1954 New South Wales Country Championships 880 yards and one mile events in record time.[3] He then moved to Sydney to run for Randwick Botany Athletics Club. Clohessy then moved to the United States to study and lecture at the University of Houston. He encouraged Australian middle distance runner Allan Lawrence to study at the University of Houston. Lawrence went on to win the 5000m at 1960 NCAA Championship.
Notable performances by Clohessy as an athlete included:
After returning to Australia from the United States, Clohessy became a teacher and athletics coach at Xavier College in Melbourne. It was at Xavier College that Clohessy started to coach Robert de Castella, who would go on to win the marathon at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, 1986 Commonwealth Games and the 1983 World Championships in Athletics. In 1983, after 16 years at Xavier College, he was appointed distance running coach at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).[5] It was a position he held until 1994 when he took up an Athletics Australia coaching position in Brisbane, Queensland.[6]
In 1998, he took up a position as athletics coach at the University of Queensland.
Clohessy was an athletics coach on the 1980 and 1984 Australian Olympic teams and 1983 and 1987 World Championships teams.
Notable Australian and AIS athletes coached by Clohessy include: Robert de Castella, Krishna Stanton, Simon Doyle, Shaun Creighton, Susan Hobson, Pat Scammell, Matt Favier, Pat Carroll, Andrew Lloyd and Brittany McGowan.
In 1994, Susan Hobson edited the book - Pat Clohessy : athlete, coach, mentor published by the Australian Sports Commission.