This story is featured in the Fall 2016 edition of the HPU Magazine. Discover below how a love for lacrosse brought HPU student Connor McKemey back from a life-threatening accident.
What does it take to overcome a 1 percent chance of survival and third-degree burns on 87 percent of your body?
For Connor McKemey, it was an unwavering passion to play Division I lacrosse.
There was a short time when McKemey feared those burns and the resulting scars and injuries would keep him from living out that dream.
But it didn’t. Not even when doctors told McKemey he’d probably never walk again.
Last spring, he dressed in a High Point University lacrosse uniform and made his official debut with the men’s lacrosse team. This spring, he’s storming the field again as a senior.
Yet just seven years ago, he was waking up from a medically induced coma and questioning what his future might really look like.
How it Happened
It was four days before Christmas.
McKemey was a 13-year-old eighth grader then. He lived in Fort Mill, South Carolina, and played basketball, football and lacrosse.
He invited a girl from school over to his house and planned an evening for them around his backyard fire pit since the cold winter had set in. But the fire wasn’t enough to keep them warm, so he pulled a portable heater closer.
Moments later, an explosion changed his life forever.
Ten weeks later, McKemey woke up in a hospital bed and listened to doctors and family explain what had happened. He had suffered life-threatening burns. This athlete with an intense love for lacrosse was told sports were no longer an option; his bones were brittle, he had lost more than 50 pounds and portions of his hands were gone.
For weeks, he mourned. He was just a teenager — there seemed to be so many things he couldn’t do now.
But his desire to play stayed with him — even through painful surgeries and treatment. So he made a decision: He wouldn’t let his prognosis determine his future.
“One day I looked at the doctors and said, ‘How can I walk again?’ They told me if I wanted to walk, I was going to have to be able to sit up. So I started with that.”
Then he put his feet on the floor. After that, he stood. Then he’d take a few steps each day. Then he walked around the intensive care unit where he was staying.
He was supposed to be in the hospital for nine months, but went home after four and a half. Then, in his backyard, he decided to do something crazy one day. He picked up a lacrosse stick and ran across the yard with it. He pressed so hard every day after that he made the JV lacrosse team his freshman year of high school and played the entire season.
Landing at High Point
McKemey’s miraculous recovery was enough to land him on the cover of Lacrosse Magazine in 2011. The story inside about his journey ended with a few words that, once again, changed his life forever.
“Connor hopes to play lacrosse at High Point University…” the story read.
Jon Torpey, who had just left Dartmouth to begin HPU’s new men’s lacrosse program, read the story and immediately reached out to McKemey.
They set up a meeting on campus. That’s when McKemey told Torpey his story, and how he had passed through the Piedmont Triad from time to time on his way to surgeries in Chapel Hill. McKemey had read about Torpey heading to High Point to start a team. He had driven through the campus, fallen in love with it, and dreamed about playing there one day.
Torpey made a one-of-a-kind offer to McKemey: come to HPU in the fall of 2013 as a student, but also a men’s lacrosse team manager.
“We look for good guys who are dedicated, have a passion for the sport and value their education,” Torpey said.
“Connor is one of those guys. I knew he’d bring an extra edge to the team.”
“After that meeting, this is the only place I wanted to be,” McKemey said. “No other university made me feel so wanted, so important. There was nowhere else.”
Making the Team
When McKemey arrived in August 2013, he quickly became part of a new family.
“I called my mom after helping out at the first practice and said, ‘Mom, this is the most fun I’ve ever had. In seven years, I haven’t been this happy.’”
He poured his heart into the team for two years before he had to confront another one of those life-changing moments. He wanted to be on the field, and he knew he had to ask his coach and teammates if he could not only manage the team, but play as an official team member.
“That’s probably one of the scariest speeches I’ve ever given. I was choking up the whole time,” McKemey said. “I remember just looking at their faces, not knowing how they’d react when I said I wanted to play. But then I saw them light up.”
When his speech ended, his teammates grabbed him and cheered. He knew their answer was yes.
So he put on that jersey for the first time, and it was a big moment. On his 21st birthday, he took to the field in a game against Marist.
He accomplished his dream, and it brought him to a new point of peace.
“People have always asked me if I could choose, would I have it the other way — life without the accident. But I don’t ever wish it were the other way. It’s a time when I had to deal with pain and frustration, but it was a short time compared to all of the opportunities I’ve been given and the people I’ve met because of it. And now I’m playing for High Point against all the big teams. This is what I wanted.”