University of Massachusets Athletics
O'Neil Closes Out Stellar Career
July 01, 2004 | Men's Track & Field
July 1, 2004
By Bob Behler
The Maroon & White
To be named the UMass Scholar-Athlete of a season, you have to excel in the classroom and on the field, as well as being involved in other campus activities. Senior John O'Neil was named UMass' Male Scholar-Athlete of the spring season after winning the decathlon at the Atlantic 10 Championship.
To be successful in the decathlon, an athlete has to be good in 10 different events. O'Neil's life outside of track & field mirrors his athletic career, as he has a number of different interests that he enjoys. He recently graduated with a 3.87 grade point average in Communications, has been a regular on the Dean's List, has been involved in several different film projects, won awards and grants for his studies, found time to be a part of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was a senator for student government.
O'Neil came to the University of Massachusetts from North Reading, Mass., in the fall of 2000. In the spring of his freshman year, he decided to walk-on the track and field team and ended up winning the decathlon at the Atlantic 10 Championship twice, once as a sophomore and again as a senior. He also finished second as a junior. O'Neil's strength as person, being very hard working, focused, and determined, helped him become a good decathlete.
"The decathlon got his interest early," said head coach Ken O'Brien. "Once he saw himself improving in each event, his confidence gained and he used that as springboard to success."
The decathlon consists of 10 events spread over two days. Each athlete is awarded points based on the time or distance in each event. The athlete with the highest point total after all 10 events is the winner.
The first day's events are the 100 meters, the long jump, the shot put, the high jump and the 400 meters. At the Atlantic 10 meet this May, O'Neil trailed Richmond's Brett Walton by 100 points after those events.
"I was little bit distraught at that point," said O'Neil. "I was wondering how good the guy from Richmond would be."
Day two consists of the 110 meter hurdles, the discus, the pole vault, the javelin and the 1500 meters. O'Neil's strongest event is the 1500 meters, so he knew if he stayed close in the point total with Walton, he liked his chances in the final event.
O'Neil picked up a lot of points in the hurdles and then Walton moved back in front after the discus. The third event, the pole vault, would be the one that would vault O'Neil to the lead in the event. He skied a career high and finished second in the event.
"I had a really strong day in the pole vault," said O'Neil. "I set a personal record at 11' 11-3/4", and Walton did not do to well, going about 10 feet, so I picked up a couple of hundred points on him. That put me in good position."
O'Neil also did well in the ninth event, the javelin, finishing second again, so going into the 10th event, the 1500 meters, he was ahead by 14 points. This meant that all he needed to do to win the decathlon was to make sure he beat Walton across the finish line.
"He was running tactically and I was running tactically," said O'Neil. "This race was going to come down to who had the best kick. I just burned it and took the gold."
O'Neil finished the decathlon with 6,115 points, the fourth highest point total in school history. Walton was second with 6,082 points. With the win, O'Neil scored 10 points for the team.
"Jon likes to work hard and with 10 events, you have to," said O'Brien. "With 10 events, you ca not get overly excited or disappointed on one event, because you have another one coming up. Jon loves track and field, and it is his determination and passion that carries him through." O'Neil, as a team captain, wanted to help UMass even more. That determination and passion, allowed him to compete in the 400 meter hurdles and the pole vault, while doing the five events in the second day of the decathlon. He would move from one event to another without benefit of much rest.
He finished fourth in the 400 hurdles with a time of 54.68, scoring six more points for the team. In the open pole vault, he went 11' 5-3/4", placing eighth to earn another point for UMass. O'Neil had personally scored 17 points for a UMass team that would finish third in the meet behind Rhode Island and La Salle. It marked the eighth straight year the Minutemen have finished in the top three in the Atlantic 10.
"He was a great captain," said O'Brien. "He was the glue that keeps people together, in season and in the offseason. You need guys like Jon to be another coach. A lot of motivation for the younger kids comes from someone like Jon. Everybody responds to him and his enthusiasm." O'Neil is just as determined and passionate about his chosen field of study, communications.
The qualities that made him a good captain will help as he sets out in the field of movie making. His ultimate goal is to be a director. Motivating and leading a cast and crew are some of the things that make or break a picture. It also helps in your direction, if you have done each of the aspects that make up a film. Much like the decathlon, there are many "events" that go into making a movie. Writing the script; acting; shooting the scene; editing; mixing in the music; and lighting the set are just some of the things that go into making a movie.
In high school, O'Neil and several friends ran their own production company that produced videos for various community events. They went out and shot things like plays, recitals, and sporting events, and then edited them. At UMass, he was involved in an independent study, where he received grants from the Commonwealth College and the UMass Arts Council to film a documentary on a fellow student who was writing a book. The documentary followed the difficulties an author had in getting his book published.
His first "professional" break came in the summer of 2002, when served as a production assistant for Scout Productions. He worked on the set of a television pilot that would go on to air on the Bravo Network. The show was "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," and it has been very successful. Some of the people who produced that show are working on another pilot, this one, a six-episode comedy that will air as a mini-series that will be shot this summer in Vermont. O'Neil said that the best place to get a job offer is from people whom you have worked with on other projects who feel comfortable with your work.
O'Neil will be in charge of continuity for the production. When you watch a show, you take for granted what the set looks like. When scenes are shot over multiple days, things have to be arranged in exactly the same spot. Occasionally, you'll see glitches in shows, where in one shot the book is on the table and then it is mysteriously missing. O'Neil will make sure that all of the shots will "match-up."
O'Neil has also entered different film festivals with movies he has produced and says that sometimes you can be "discovered" there. Ultimately, he would rather produce movies for the big screen than television shows.
"You're freer to do what you want with a film," said O'Neil. "You usually have better equipment and more time."
O'Neil started his track and field career at the bottom as a walk-on and left as a team captain who won the decathlon at the Atlantic 10 Championship. He is starting at the bottom again, this time in the film industry. It would not surprise the people who know O'Neil at UMass, if some day his name shows up on the credits of a major motion picture.
This story was originally published in The Maroon & White.
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