Known as J.P. or Pat to his friends, family, and colleagues; Patrick when Irish was called for; Mr. O'Shea or Dr. O'Shea to students; affectionately as Dr. O to grad students; Professor Bear to his kids; Paddy to his wife, and Papa Pat to his grandkids. No matter the moniker, for over five decades, Patrick O'Shea promoted the benefits of strength training whether as an Olympic lifter, coach, researcher, teacher, author, cyclist, or wilderness traveler.
The Irishman began his journey on March 10, 1930 in Detroit, Michigan where he spent his childhood, attending the Hall of the Divine Child-a semi-military boarding school. Sports were highly regarded as character builders, and it was here that Patrick began to develop a lifelong interest in physical exercise-competing in soccer, baseball, hockey, and football.
As a teenager in 1945, life for Patrick changed from a city setting to a rural one when his family moved to a small dairy farm on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Patrick was soon milking cows, putting up hay, and finding that farm life agreed with him. Academics, on the other hand, eluded him due to a lack of parental supervision and poor study habits. As a result, he ranked near the bottom in his class of 250. Luckily, sports-especially swimming and baseball, kept Patrick attending Ann Arbor High School until graduation in 1949. While training for swimming at the YMCA, he was bitten by the weightlifting bug. And thus began his journey of becoming a strong advocate of strength training and a scholar of strength physiology. In order to get to the swimming pool, Patrick had to pass through the weight room each day. Watching the weight lifters there piqued his own interest, finally working up the courage to introduce himself to one of the weight lifters, Al Kornke, the United States Junior National Weightlifting Champion. In no time, Kornke was coaching Patrick and guiding him through the Olympic lifts. Kornke also introduced Patrick to US Olympic champions and world record holders Stan Stanczyk and Norbert Schemansky, who further encouraged his interest in weight training and competitive lifting, leading to Patrick's winning the 1953 Michigan AAU Championships and the National YMCA Championship in the 181 lb. class.
After high school, Patrick, who did not have the necessary GPA for college entrance, decided to manage the family diary until it was sold in 1953. At that time, Patrick found himself unemployed and facing the prospect of being drafted. He decided to volunteer for the army and was assigned to be the head mail clerk and a part-time reporter/photographer with Headquarters Company, Southern Area Command, in Munich, Germany. This was a fortuitous assignment for an aspiring weight lifter for it gave Patrick the opportunity to join the prestigious TSV 1860 Sports Club and be exposed to the European training methods and lifting techniques. While competing for them, his biggest thrills were in winning the Munich and Bavarian Championships before crowds of 2,000.
Prior to joining the army, Patrick had been undecided as to what path his life should follow after being discharged from the military, but the total army and Munich experience gave him new direction. In 1956 he was accepted at Michigan State University on the GI Bill where he majored in political science/economics with a minor in physical education. During this time, he worked in the intramural department and continued to lift competitively with the MSU weightlifting club, twice placing second in the NCAA Championships. In 1958 MSU won the NCAA Team Championship under the leadership of Coach O'Shea. During his sophomore year, Patrick was befriended by Clarence "Biggie" Munn who was head football coach, athletic director, and chair of the P.E. Department. Munn gave Patrick new responsibilities. The first was to set up weight training programs for the football team. This perhaps makes O'Shea the first strength coach in the U.S. His second responsibility was to design and equip the weight training facility in the new intramural building. Because of his close association with intramurals and athletics, Patrick decided to pursue a M.A. degree in physical education after receiving his bachelor's in 1960. His interest in research developed as he assisted in the Human Fitness Lab and completed his thesis in 1962 which was entitled the Effects of Selected Weight Training Programs on the Development of Strength and Muscle Hypertrophy . This was later published in the 1966 issue of Research Quarterly. Before departing MSU, "Biggie" presented Patrick with the much coveted Great Spartan award.
While completing his graduate degree, Patrick met and married Susie, a fellow graduate student. They married in August of 1962, and Patrick soon took a teaching position at Oregon State University. He devoted the next three decades to OSU in the Department of Physical Education, which is now Exercise and Sport Science. In addition to teaching, he began coaching the intramural weightlifting team. Members of the team included Jack "Mad Dog" O'Billovich, who later became a Detroit Lions linebacker; Ron Johnson, who placed 4th in the 1972 Olympic trials in Detroit; Pat Downing, who was the Pacific Northwest champion four times; a Lachen (la sun) Samsam, an Olympic shot putter from Morocco. During the summers, Patrick supervised internship graduate students throughout the Pacific Northwest. The students were mainly football coaches earning credits to maintain their teaching certification. The students living in the small ranching community of Joseph, located in the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon, asked Patrick to be an honorary marshal along with old-time western actor, Walter Brennan, of the Chief Joseph Days celebration and also to conduct a lifting demonstration in the rodeo arena. Patrick came roaring into the arena at a full gallop on a big chestnut cutting horse, dismounted, and proceeded to clean and jerk 255 lbs. for several reps with no warm-up, wearing boots, and lifting on dirt! He was an immediate hit. In 1964, however, Patrick tore his quads in a lifting meet in San Francisco, thus ending his competitive Olympic lifting career.
In 1968, Patrick took advantage of a sabbatical and applied and was accepted into the doctoral program in sports science at the University of Utah. After eighteen months of intense study and the completion of his thesis - The Effects of Anabolic Steroid Administration on Competitive Swimmers- he became Dr. John Patrick O'Shea, in March of 1970. Obviously, his study habits had improved considerably since high school!
In 1976, Dr. O'Shea was promoted to full professor in recognition of his professional scholarship in teaching, research, and publishing. A second edition of Scientific Principles and Methods of Strength Fitness, considered by many to be the bible of strength training, was published, and his teaching and research focused on the area of applied exercise and sports physiology with special emphasis on the physiological basis of strength development. As an outgrowth of his research, Patrick developed two new training concepts: functional isometrics and interval weight training. During this time, he also continued his research of anabolic steroids with four more studies; proved through research that women had the same ability as men to tolerate and adapt to the demanding physical stress of power lifting; developed a curriculum for a new course of undergraduate study-Commercial and Industrial Fitness-to promote fitness in the work place; and developed and taught two new courses - orienteering/backpacking and mountaineering.
Perhaps Patrick's proudest achievement during these years was the mentoring of graduate students-14 master's students and 32 doctoral candidates. He challenged them in the classroom and the gym, most having to prove themselves worthy of the program by competing with Patrick in lifting, running, cycling, and other such activities.
Patrick and Susie were introduced to mountaineering in 1970 through a week long course on Mt. Rainier (14,400 ft), learning the skills and techniques necessary to teach upcoming classes in orienteering/backpacking and mountaineering through the PE department. Patrick taught his students thoroughly, proven by the fact that they saved his life on one graduation climb of Mt. St. Helen's, then a peak of 9,600 ft., in 1976. While crossing over a hidden crevasse at the 8,500 ft. level, the crevasse collapsed and plummeted Patrick, who was lead on the rope, 60 ft. below, burying him under 5 ft. of snow. Susie, second clumber on the rope, also went over but was stopped mid-air when two students on the rope performed self-arrest, stopping her fall. Thinking Patrick was probably dead, they worked on rescuing Susie. Then, three students risked their lives to retrieve Patrick's body. What a surprise when they found him alive after being buried for over 2 1/2 hours! A small pocket of air and being knocked unconscious had saved his life, plus the fact that his fitness level was very high. His love of climbing was somewhat subdued after that incident, but the wilderness itself continued to call for many years.
A forte of Patrick's was writing. Over the course of his career he wrote some 200 lay and research articles. Subject matter varied from strength and altitude physiology to steroids, mountaineering, and cycling. In addition, Patrick also wrote two more books published after retiring: Quantum Strength and Power Training, and Quantum Strength Fitness II.
Interest in Patrick's work brought in invitations to serve as a consultant or committee member for many organizations, like the U.S. Cycling and Weightlifting Federations, the U.S. Olympic Weightlifting Committee, the Korean Sports Science Institute, and the National Ski Patrol. It also brought several awards: the NSCA President's Award, the NSCA Alvin Roy Memorial Award, the Oregon Strength and Conditioning Association's Distinguished Service Award and the Pioneering Achievement Award, and induction into the USA Strength and Conditioning Coaches Hall of Fame.
Patrick was a fixture at Oregon State until 1991, when he finally retired from teaching. He, however, continued his research, publishing, lecturing, and maintaining a constant state of physical readiness to participate in and enjoy cycling events, backpacking, XC skiing, and lifting (squatting 515 lbs and deadlifting 525 lbs for his 62nd birthday). He also enjoyed stamp and coin collecting, photography, history, pulling practical jokes, and making wine!
Patrick's lifting career ended as it had begun-in the gym. At the age of 74, he suffered a cardiac arrest while working out. At the trailhead to Jeff Park at the base of Oregon's Mt. Jefferson is a memorial plaque with one of Patrick's favorite John Muir sayings:
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings,
Nature's peace will flow into you
As sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow
Their own freshness into you,
And the storms their energy,
While cares will drip off
Like autumn leaves.
He is trekking the wilderness still.
