Dana Dougan Hollar - Suffern 1988
You don’t have to look far to uncover the secrets of Dana Dougan’s success in Rockland track and cross country. When you combine her talent and competitive zeal, running background, strong team support and superior coaching, it’s no wonder she became one of Rockland County’s flagship distance runners of any era.
By the time she closed out her brilliant four-year career for the Suffern Mounties, Dana had established herself as one of the all-time greats in school and County history, mastering every distance from 400 meters to the cross country 5K. She was a 14-time Rockland champion, 12-time Section 1 titleholder and eight-time State Qualifier winner. She was the first Rockland girl to break 5 minutes in the 1,600/mile – winning the 1988 Loucks Games 1,600 meters in a County-record 4:58.97 – and also the first to sweep the Sectional cross country title four straight years.
Dana swept the 1,500 and 3,000 at the outdoor County meet three consecutive years. She was the New York State runner-up in the indoor 3,000 in 1988, placed third indoors in the 4x800 in 1987, the 4x400 in 1988, and the national indoor 4x800 in 1986. She also finished third in the 1987 New York State Federation individual race. Dana still ranks among the top 10 in County annals in the outdoor 1,600 (No. 3), 1,500 (4:41.1) and 3,000 (10:15.0), the indoor mile (5:09.17), two-mile (11:10.2) and two-mile relay (9:26.6), and on Bear Mountain’s 3-mile course (17:57.9). In 1999 she was one of 21 female harriers selected to the Rockland County All-Century Cross Country Team.
Dana’s bloodlines might have predisposed her to exalted heights in distance running. Her father, John, was the Irish national 3-mile champion three years in a row, won the Irish Olympic Trials in 1956 in the 5,000 meters, and earned a full scholarship to run for NYU. As a fifth-grader, Dana won a three-quarter-mile race against other elementary-school children in the Ramapo Central School District. After that victory, and a subsequent training run to prepare Dana for the following year’s race, John Dougan sensed in his daughter the potential to go far in the sport he had starred in.
“I found that I craved winning and when I entered junior high, I ran cross country and track and never looked back,” says Dana, whose parents, John and Nancy, still live in Suffern. “I often spoke with my dad while competing. His thoughts and insight were invaluable while I was running both in high school and college.”
Suffern’s perennially powerful teams were made even stronger by Dana’s emergence as a star as a freshman. Surrounded by talented teammates and a friendly, close-knit atmosphere, Dana thrived under the direction Coach Tom McTaggart in cross country and spring track, and Coach Joe Biddy in winter track. McTaggart was “a great teacher of the sport” who often could predict how Dana would perform, such as her Section 1 Class A cross country victory as a freshman, which she thought was totally unattainable.
Biddy was remembered as a taskmaster who knew each runner’s workout and race capabilities – usually right down to the second – and exuded a passion and intensity that equaled (or sometimes exceeded) that of his charges. If his runners failed to come through workout checkpoints at designated times, he threatened to have them re-run the interval. “He could get me to run just about anything whether it was a race or even in practice,” Dana says. “He wanted me to do just as well as I wanted to do. That meant a lot.”
Dana enjoyed close relationships with many teammates, especially her partners on the relays, which performed so well in state and national competitions. Paula LaBruna, Jen Etkin, Donna Sepulveda, Stephanie Cronin, Donna Veverka, Beth Smith – these were some of the fellow Mounties with whom Dana shared many enjoyable bus rides to meets and character-building workouts together. She also cultivated friendships with notable rivals such as North Rockland’s Nancy Sayre and Arlington’s Emily and Julie Nielsen. Pearl River’s parade of top-flight runners usually brought out Dana’s best, rivals like Della Haley, Wendy May, Linda Giardina, Nathalie Marquis and Erika Duthiers.
Asking Dana which accomplishment stands out most is like trying to choose from among a crown full of jewels, but she rates her sub-5-minute 1,600 as one of her proudest moments. “I had waited so long to put a good mile together and I knew that in order to be taken seriously, I would have to run under 5 minutes,” says Dana, who had clocked 5:04 and 5:03 in the previous two years at Loucks.
Dana received a partial scholarship to run for Penn State and achieved mixed results for the Nittany Lions. She had to overcome injury and adapt to a different coaching and training system than what she was used to at Suffern. Some of her highlights included a fine 3:29 split on the 1,200-meter leg of Penn State’s distance medley at the Penn Relays, a 2:11 split on the 4x800 at Penn Relays, and qualifying for and competing in the 1991 NCAA cross country championships and in the 1,500 at the 1992 Big Ten meet. She posted personal-best times of 4:34 for 1,500 and a couple ticks over 10:00 for 3,000.
Dana graduated in the fall of 1992 with a degree in elementary education and took some graduate credits in the spring of 1993 to be eligible to compete that season and fulfill her redshirt season from the spring of 1989. After graduation she returned to Suffern to serve as assistant track coach and substitute teacher while pursuing a permanent teaching position. She was offered a position in June 1994 with the Pocono Mountain School District in Pennsylvania and has been there ever since, teaching second grade for five years and fifth grade for the past 12 years at the Tobyhanna Elementary Center. Among the after-school clubs she advises is the school’s Odyssey of the Mind team, which took part in a regional competition in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Dana, who’s 41, is enjoying her life as a teacher, wife and mom. She lives in East Stroudsburg, Pa., with her husband of 11 years, Michael Hollar, a health and physical education teacher, and their three children: Emily, 10; Jack, 8; and Mikey, 6. They love to travel during their summers off and took a cross-country trip with their RV last summer to Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore. This year’s potential destinations include Niagara Falls, Bar Harbor in Maine, and Lake Placid.
Staying fit remains a priority for Dana, although the pounding from road running has occasioned a shift to cross-training and excelling in a new arena – mini-triathlons. Last year she finished second in her age group in the New Jersey Triathlon – “not bad for 40-plus years and 102-degree weather,” says Dana, whose ill-fated attempt at the marathon after having kids convinced her to abandon that unforgiving distance for good. “Training for triathlons has been much easier on my body as the constant pounding of the roads has not been … I enjoy mixing it up a bit with the running, swimming and biking.”
By the time she closed out her brilliant four-year career for the Suffern Mounties, Dana had established herself as one of the all-time greats in school and County history, mastering every distance from 400 meters to the cross country 5K. She was a 14-time Rockland champion, 12-time Section 1 titleholder and eight-time State Qualifier winner. She was the first Rockland girl to break 5 minutes in the 1,600/mile – winning the 1988 Loucks Games 1,600 meters in a County-record 4:58.97 – and also the first to sweep the Sectional cross country title four straight years.
Dana swept the 1,500 and 3,000 at the outdoor County meet three consecutive years. She was the New York State runner-up in the indoor 3,000 in 1988, placed third indoors in the 4x800 in 1987, the 4x400 in 1988, and the national indoor 4x800 in 1986. She also finished third in the 1987 New York State Federation individual race. Dana still ranks among the top 10 in County annals in the outdoor 1,600 (No. 3), 1,500 (4:41.1) and 3,000 (10:15.0), the indoor mile (5:09.17), two-mile (11:10.2) and two-mile relay (9:26.6), and on Bear Mountain’s 3-mile course (17:57.9). In 1999 she was one of 21 female harriers selected to the Rockland County All-Century Cross Country Team.
Dana’s bloodlines might have predisposed her to exalted heights in distance running. Her father, John, was the Irish national 3-mile champion three years in a row, won the Irish Olympic Trials in 1956 in the 5,000 meters, and earned a full scholarship to run for NYU. As a fifth-grader, Dana won a three-quarter-mile race against other elementary-school children in the Ramapo Central School District. After that victory, and a subsequent training run to prepare Dana for the following year’s race, John Dougan sensed in his daughter the potential to go far in the sport he had starred in.
“I found that I craved winning and when I entered junior high, I ran cross country and track and never looked back,” says Dana, whose parents, John and Nancy, still live in Suffern. “I often spoke with my dad while competing. His thoughts and insight were invaluable while I was running both in high school and college.”
Suffern’s perennially powerful teams were made even stronger by Dana’s emergence as a star as a freshman. Surrounded by talented teammates and a friendly, close-knit atmosphere, Dana thrived under the direction Coach Tom McTaggart in cross country and spring track, and Coach Joe Biddy in winter track. McTaggart was “a great teacher of the sport” who often could predict how Dana would perform, such as her Section 1 Class A cross country victory as a freshman, which she thought was totally unattainable.
Biddy was remembered as a taskmaster who knew each runner’s workout and race capabilities – usually right down to the second – and exuded a passion and intensity that equaled (or sometimes exceeded) that of his charges. If his runners failed to come through workout checkpoints at designated times, he threatened to have them re-run the interval. “He could get me to run just about anything whether it was a race or even in practice,” Dana says. “He wanted me to do just as well as I wanted to do. That meant a lot.”
Dana enjoyed close relationships with many teammates, especially her partners on the relays, which performed so well in state and national competitions. Paula LaBruna, Jen Etkin, Donna Sepulveda, Stephanie Cronin, Donna Veverka, Beth Smith – these were some of the fellow Mounties with whom Dana shared many enjoyable bus rides to meets and character-building workouts together. She also cultivated friendships with notable rivals such as North Rockland’s Nancy Sayre and Arlington’s Emily and Julie Nielsen. Pearl River’s parade of top-flight runners usually brought out Dana’s best, rivals like Della Haley, Wendy May, Linda Giardina, Nathalie Marquis and Erika Duthiers.
Asking Dana which accomplishment stands out most is like trying to choose from among a crown full of jewels, but she rates her sub-5-minute 1,600 as one of her proudest moments. “I had waited so long to put a good mile together and I knew that in order to be taken seriously, I would have to run under 5 minutes,” says Dana, who had clocked 5:04 and 5:03 in the previous two years at Loucks.
Dana received a partial scholarship to run for Penn State and achieved mixed results for the Nittany Lions. She had to overcome injury and adapt to a different coaching and training system than what she was used to at Suffern. Some of her highlights included a fine 3:29 split on the 1,200-meter leg of Penn State’s distance medley at the Penn Relays, a 2:11 split on the 4x800 at Penn Relays, and qualifying for and competing in the 1991 NCAA cross country championships and in the 1,500 at the 1992 Big Ten meet. She posted personal-best times of 4:34 for 1,500 and a couple ticks over 10:00 for 3,000.
Dana graduated in the fall of 1992 with a degree in elementary education and took some graduate credits in the spring of 1993 to be eligible to compete that season and fulfill her redshirt season from the spring of 1989. After graduation she returned to Suffern to serve as assistant track coach and substitute teacher while pursuing a permanent teaching position. She was offered a position in June 1994 with the Pocono Mountain School District in Pennsylvania and has been there ever since, teaching second grade for five years and fifth grade for the past 12 years at the Tobyhanna Elementary Center. Among the after-school clubs she advises is the school’s Odyssey of the Mind team, which took part in a regional competition in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Dana, who’s 41, is enjoying her life as a teacher, wife and mom. She lives in East Stroudsburg, Pa., with her husband of 11 years, Michael Hollar, a health and physical education teacher, and their three children: Emily, 10; Jack, 8; and Mikey, 6. They love to travel during their summers off and took a cross-country trip with their RV last summer to Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore. This year’s potential destinations include Niagara Falls, Bar Harbor in Maine, and Lake Placid.
Staying fit remains a priority for Dana, although the pounding from road running has occasioned a shift to cross-training and excelling in a new arena – mini-triathlons. Last year she finished second in her age group in the New Jersey Triathlon – “not bad for 40-plus years and 102-degree weather,” says Dana, whose ill-fated attempt at the marathon after having kids convinced her to abandon that unforgiving distance for good. “Training for triathlons has been much easier on my body as the constant pounding of the roads has not been … I enjoy mixing it up a bit with the running, swimming and biking.”