He once split Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram in a British clean sweep of the 800m medals at the European Championship.
But, while Coe went on to become an athletics administration powerhouse off the track and Cram shone in high-profile television commentary for the BBC, Tom McKean disappeared from public view – until now.
Now 61, and after a 30-year absence during which the Scotsman pursued a career in the police, the Olympian has returned to athletics.
The former World Indoor and European outdoor champion’s first steps into coaching have been captured in a new Scottish Athletics documentary – Giving Back to Track – Tom McKean (Motherwell AC).
“I retired 18 months ago and I was running with my wife at Motherwell AC and they said, ‘Why don’t you start coaching again? We’d love to have you at Motherwell AC’,” he reveals.
“The partnership quickly evolved and very quickly they got me hooked and they wouldn’t let me go.”
Given McKean’s achievements, it is little wonder.
He burst on to the scene in 1986, taking Commonwealth Games silver behind Cram and ahead of another talented Englishman Peter Elliott.
Weeks later, he was a runner-up again at the European Championships, gaining revenge on Cram but being edged out by Coe for gold.
McKean would finally taste gold – at the 1989 World Cup and the 1990 European indoor and outdoor championships, as well as the 1993 World Indoors.
Police Scotland would then come calling, but now he is enjoying giving something back to the sport.
“Being a coach, I’m trying to create dreams, ambitions and goals for young people – to set them on their way in life,” he says.
‘Life is tough for kids and they need to deal with joy, disappointment, underachieving, over-achieving – and I think we give them that in a safe environment.”
McKean draws on his own career to explain why giving your best is what should matter in athletics.
“My advice is: if you give 100% then you can walk off a track, or walk off a cross-country race, or walk off a training session and say ‘I’ve done the best I can’,” he says.
“Then, to me, you can’t ask for any more. Once I ran in the final of the European Championships and I finished second, but I couldn’t have done anything better.
“I couldn’t have run any quicker, I couldn’t have been in better positions. I finished second because Seb Coe beat me on the line. But I had given 100% and should have been happy with the result – and I was happy with the result.”
