With three All Stars, three Ulster Senior Football Championship medals as a player, two as a manager to his name, and, in 2002, he guided Tyrone to their first all-Ireland triumph in the National League.
[citation needed] McKenna was the captain of a noteworthy Tyrone team in the mid-eighties, which included All Star winners, Plunkett Donaghy, Frank McGuigan, Damian O'Hagan and John Lynch.
[citation needed] Eugene started his playing career with Augher St Macartan's, a small club in the south of Tyrone.
Tyrone gained a massive seven-point lead during the second half, but a missed penalty dented their confidence, and McKenna had to be replaced due to injury.
McKenna won three All-Star awards during his career, in 1984, 1986 and 1989, making him Tyrone's most prolific representative, until the emergence of Peter Canavan in the mid nineties.
[5] After he retired from playing football, McKenna joined his longtime manager, Art McRory, guiding the team to its second sustained spell of success.
In the All-Ireland Final against Dublin, Tyrone took an early lead, just as they had in 1986, but the Dubs fought back, and ended up winning the match by a single point, 1-10 to 0-12.
With seconds remaining, and Tyrone down by a point, Russell adjudged Canavan to have touched the ball in the ground, when he was passing it to teammate Sean McLaughlin.
[citation needed] Several of Tyrone's key players sustained injuries in that match, including Peter Canavan, who subsequently found out he had been playing with a broken foot.