WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Charger Rundown: Austin Connelly

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

 Incoming Hillsdale freshman Austin Connelly talks about his experience as a high school quarterback and shares his testimony.

Hello and welcome to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. This is the Charger Rundown. I'm Hannah Connolly. And I'm Evan Mick with all things Charger Athletics. Today we will be interviewing incoming freshman Austin Connolly. But first, here's a recap of Charger Athletics this past week. The Chargers men's basketball team defeated Northwood 92 to 75 with a big 22 point night by Charles Woodhams. They are now 12 and 6 overall and 7 and 4 in conference play. The Charger women's basketball team unfortunately fell to Northwood on Thursday, January 25th, 76 to 68, even though they had a solid shooting night.

The Chargers now fall 9-9 overall in 5-and-5 in G-Mack play. I'm here with incoming Hillsdale freshman Austin Connolly. While also being my brother, he was the quarterback for his high school football team for four years. Austin has a great testimony, and I'm excited to have him on today's podcast to share a little bit about it. Thank you so much for joining us, Austin. Thank you so much for having me. So we'll start with your high school career. How did you get into football?

What started that passion for the sport? Growing up, my dad is a really big football guy. He played linebacker in high school. He played a little bit in college. So it's always just been my dream to play football. When I was a kid, my mom really wouldn't let me play pee-wee football. So once I got into high school, my dad finally convinced her that it was time to let me play. And ever since then, I just kept running with it.

And so what made you to decide? to pursue the quarterback position. I know our dad was a linebacker. So what made you decide to play on the opposite side of the ball? Yeah, my dad being a linebacker, definitely he wanted me to be on the defensive side of the ball. He thought cowards played offense. He used a little bit of a different word there.

But so I had your, my sister's older sister's older friend who played quarterback actually started training me over the summers. And that's kind of where the love for that position can. came from. Naturally, I'm a smarter individual and I liked being in control and controlling things, and that's kind of what the quarterback position is all about. So once I got into it, once I started studying and just really watching the film and just practicing, I fell in love with the position, and that's kind of how I ended up there. And so you faced a pretty serious injury at your junior year in football, not in the quarterback position. So talk me through what happened, what you learned,

the way that you saw Jesus throughout that whole experience, just kind of gave me the run down. with that. Yeah, so it was just practice in October. I was playing scout linebacker for the team. They ran a jet sweep. I went to run after the guy and go tackle him and the running back came out of the backfield and hit me blindside. I didn't see him. And the next thing I knew, I woke up on the ground that I couldn't move from the neck down. I was airlifted to a hospital nearby where I was there for two days. And I was diagnosed with lifetime paralysis and Caesars. And when the doctors came into my room and they kind of declared that diagnosis over me, they didn't talk to me.

They talked over me to my parents as if I wasn't existent or wasn't in the room. And the only reaction I had is I looked at all of them and I said, get out of my room. Get out. And I kicked them out of my room and I didn't accept that diagnosis. And alone in my room, I cried and I really prayed and cried out to Jesus. And I was like, God, I know this isn't your doing. And I know you're going to have, you know, you're going to make a miracle out of this. and I know that you have a plan and I trust it.

So the next day I got transferred to a hospital Miami, which specialized in injuries like mine. And I was there for another three days where I could not move from the neck down. I was still having seizures. And on the fifth day, I just decided that I was going to get out of the bed and that I was going to walk. So that's exactly what I did. I got up and very slowly I started to move and things started to come back. Later that day, the doctor came into our room and said, They re-ran the EKG and I was no longer having seizures.

And the next day, I walked out of the hospital by myself with no medicine, no need for, just no need for a lot of therapy. But I was just able to walk because of Jesus. They had no medical explanation of why I got healed or why that happened. They just, I just could walk and I wasn't having seizures anymore. So, yeah, that's really the story. But after that, I really, I still loved football football. football was still a big desire of mine to finish my career and play my senior season. And I felt that God really wanted me to continue to play and kind of shine his light through coming back to

play. I wanted to show people how much of a miracle it really was. And I wanted to honor God through my playing. So that's exactly what I did. I went back. I started to work out. I started to run. I started to just get back to doing the normal things that I used to do. And through that, I ended up earning the starting roll at quarterback for my senior year and we went 10 and 1. We had a good year. And I just was able to glorify God and just praise him and just share his name and his love through that position that he allowed me to plan. And so a little bit earlier before this injury, you were in another accident. I believe it was your freshman year. And so talk to me a little bit about that, kind of how you saw Jesus through that, but also how that equipped you for this incident,

which was a little bit worse than the one before. Yeah, so I'll kind of give a quick explanation of what that was. I was grilling burgers. I turned all six burners on and then I went inside to go get the tomatoes and the lettuce, get everything to make the burgers. And I came back outside and none of the burners had turned on. So it was just propane flowing into our summer kitchen grill. So I turned all the burners off and just instinctively I went and I turned the first burner back on. And because of that, that spark caught all the free-flowing propane and it just exploded. I was sent 10 feet flying over a table. I had second and third-degree burns all down my legs.

I had to have a debreedment surgery and it was months of recovery. I wasn't allowed in the sun. I had to wear compression pants. But Jesus really worked a miracle through that even though from the outside it doesn't look like it. But when I went back through it, I actually, saw Jesus when I went to relight the grill initially I opened it up to see that the burners hadn't lit and for some reason I closed the top back down and had I not done that instead of my legs being burned my entire face and my shoulders would have been burned and it would have been way worse and I also I saw Jesus become there's a wall

right behind our grill and behind that wall is a 200 gallon tank of propane and I legitimately saw Jesus come and like reinforce that wall when the explosion happened because if it would have spread and it would actually would have hit that 200 gallon tank of propane it would have exploded my whole house not just my legs um and after the explosion happened we have a pool that's right next to our grill and i saw jesus take literally he just like he went from behind the wall and he just like went into the pool he just like basically took shape of the pool and kind of invited me into it so after i was burned the first thing i did it was i went and i jumped in the pool and because of that my burns stayed primarily second and a little bit of third degree burns. And had I not done that,

I would have had all third degree burns and I would have lost feeling in almost my entire legs and my right hand and arm. So just through my whole experience, I just kind of saw Jesus there in protecting me. And I even saw him in my hospital room. He was just standing outside my door and he just like, I saw him, he just gave me a thumbs up. Like everything's okay. And that really prepared me for the next experience because I knew that God was going to heal me when I was injured. That's why I rejected the doctor's diagnosis when they came in and spoke death really over me because I knew that Jesus had a better plan for my life and he had already worked a miracle. He had already protecting me before.

And I knew that he was going to do the same thing again. And because of that, just like the blind faith that I just trust him no matter what was really reinforced by that. first injury and just really played into the second one. And I think it's really the reason why I recovered like I did is because I was prepared and because God prepared me. And so how have both of these injuries, specifically the paralysis one, influenced not only your faith, but your mentality as an athlete. You did decide to go back and play football afterwards. So how did that change the way that you view the sport? Yeah. Well, I mean, it changed everything about the sport. Initially, my whole basis in playing football was I wanted to go and I wanted to play in college. I wanted to go to college for

free so let me get a scholarship for football. And after being injured after those, those injuries, it became so much more. It was how can I use this stage that God is allowing me to have? And how can I make this into something to where I can just glorify him? So the objective went from, okay, how can I make these cool plays? How can I send this film out to colleges? How can I get recruited to? how can I recruit Jesus? Like how can I show people Jesus? How can I get out on the media and just talk about God when I'm on interviews? So, you know, there was post-game interviews.

We had our local news came out to a couple practices and just recorded me playing and kind of giving my stories. And I made sure in every single one of those, I didn't just talk about the game that we played the Friday before. But I talked about how much my faith was a part of it and how if it wasn't for God, I would be sitting in a bed. stepping out of a straw because I couldn't move my arms and legs. And I just made sure I was always honoring him through that. And I think that's through these injuries, that's really how everything changed was it became from trying to almost exalt myself to colleges and kind of show them how good I was to exulting Jesus and showing how good he is and how good his love is. That's awesome. And so you're listening to the Charger Rundown on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

So you said that you were injured in practice. So you're obviously around all your teammates, your coaches. You were hit by a player on your team. So talk to me a little bit about how that influenced your relationship with the team, your relationship with the guy who hit you, how they all came around you during this time of hardship, of struggle. How were they there for you? Yeah.

So, I mean, the accident was purely an accident in football. You go 100% all the time. And that's exactly what the teammate that hit me he was doing. He was just doing his job. He was meant to block me. He blocked me. So there was never any hard feelings between us. But I was always the spiritual leader on the team.

So when I got injured, it was actually a good thing because it made other teammates have to step up and be the person who prayed before practice every day because that's what I did, who prayed before the games because that's what I did. And I think the injury was not only beneficial for me in my faith, but I think it was beneficial for my team's faith. And through that, they all just really came around. me. They're all there. They all texted me. They made a YouTube video. All of them made little clips saying how much they missed me. So it's really a brotherhood when you play a sport. And you definitely

see it more in the hard times than you do in the good times. So I mean, my coaches, they came to the hospital. They brought us food. They were just, everybody was always there. And it always felt like a family in that I was always being constantly supported by my team and my community. And that really made a world of a difference when it came to recovering from this and just trying to get back out onto the field. Everyone was very supportive of me on my team and my parents and really just everybody around me. And wasn't the teammate who came to the hospital the most, actually the quarterback that you were competing for the position with? Yes, yes. So through the quarterback position, our coach kind of made it in a way where we were really just going head-to-head

with each other. And we kind of had two routes. We could have gone. We could have hated each other. We could have just become friends through it. And we went with the friends route. So him and I were always good friends because we're always going through the drills together. We were watching film together, going over plays. So him and I became really, really close through the football season. And the person who did visit me most was the person that I was directly competing against. And he was just, he was one of my best friends. So he was, he was great. He was always there for me. And, you know, even though I couldn't do a lot when I was paralyzed, he just, he just hung out. He said, I'm here for you, buddy, you know, you're going to get through this.

He was also very strong in his faith, and I just, it's cool to see how even though you're competing for something. So, you know, every day in, day out, sweat and tears, this is a person when you're doing sprints, this is the person you're trying to beat every time. But, you know, it doesn't matter that that's who you're directly competing with, because at the end of the day, you know, you really love that person. And I love competition. And so did he.

And because of that, we just grew stronger and we grew closer. in our friendship together. And so switching gears a little bit here, you've also started a company during your high school career. Talk to me a little bit about what kind of business it is and what inspired you to do something like this at such a young age, but also how the Lord has equipped you through your growing process and these accents and these miracles to be mature and ready to handle something like this. Yeah, so they are actually pretty directly related. When I was paralyzed, that's really when I realized that I wanted to pursue being an entrepreneur. And I didn't want to

to wait till college or after college to start something. So it was really in the hospital that I was there for those five days. And I was like, you know what? Like I want to take action in my life because when you get an injury like that and you're in the hospital like that, you really realize that every day isn't promise and you need to take every second for granted. And you just, you need to things you love and things you want to do. You got to do. You can't really put them off. So I started an electronic security and destruction company a short, I don't know, it was a few months after I got out of the hospital. And it's kind of, and it's an extension of my parents' company.

They own a shredding and medical waste company, which is really talking about personal security, but on the sense of paper. So mine is personal security just in the outlook of electronics. So what really motivated me to do this was my injury, but it also, was my parents and being able to watch them be such good entrepreneurs and be so financially responsible with their business and the things that they're doing. So I think because of them, I think that's the reason that I was really, like, became so mature at the age that I was to want to start this business. So they have some, some friends in the industry who are very successful.

So over the summer, I went for a week and visited one of their friends in Missouri who, who is very successful in the electronic destruction kind of industry. So I kind of shadowed under him for a week and saw how he ran things. I took notes and I went back to my own business and I directly applied this to what I was doing to make me more, to make my business more successful and to make it just more lucrative. And how can I make everything that it's the most efficient way possible? And that's really what I learned from that week. and really just what I applied to my business. So yeah. So what is electronics data destruction?

Talk to us a little bit about what that is. What is the company? Yeah. So electronic data destruction is essentially when you have an end-of-life electronic, it can be your phone, your laptop, your computer, your printer, anything that can store your data. When you need to get rid of it, you can't just throw it away as you would, a banana peel or something like that because, because, you know, people will steal your information. So essentially what happens is when they're done with these electronics, they send them to me. And what I do is I open up whatever it is. I get onto the inside into the motherboard of it.

And I take out there's usually there's seven to eight places that can store your data. And in most cases, a lot of people just know about the hard drive. That's kind of the big name. And everyone's like, I just take out my hard drive. take out my hard drive, but in reality, if you take out your hard drive, you're still putting yourself at risk to get all of your information stolen. So a lot of my job is just informing clients of how dangerous it is to just take apart your hard drive and leave everything else. So I take their whole computer. I take out those seven to eight, you know, compartments that kind of hold their data,

and I shred them into thousands of pieces. And then I take the rest of whatever's left to kind of just, you know, just the scraps of it and I recycle that. And that's really what a brief description of the electronics destruction kind of industry is. That's really cool. It's awesome that you started something like that so early. And also really cool that you decided to come to college, even though you started a company. So talk to me a little bit about that. You decided to attend Hillsdale College, not through the athletic program, but just as a student. So what made you decide that Hillsdale was the place that you wanted to continue your education at? Well, I think you had a lot to do with it, obviously having family here is definitely draws me here. But through

my coming up here and studying through classes and just kind of what I've heard from you is the professors, they really care and they're amazing and, you know, they're conservative. And those are things that are very, very important to me in a school. I love the class size. I love that it's not some huge school and I love that I'm not just a number and that the teachers are really going to know me for who I am and know my name and things about me. And I'm just, I'm really excited to come here and learn more about how I can be more efficient in running my business, more on like the financial side and the logistics side of running a business, because I know somewhat I know about that, but there's, I'm just just at the tip of the iceberg

and there's so much more that I can learn. And I think Hillsdale is going to be the place that's going to teach me the most about this. And it's also going to surround me with like-minded people who think like me and have a faith like I do. And, you know, that's, that's priceless. That's the most important thing to me when it comes to picking out of college. And so now that you're done playing football, your senior season has ended, what are you doing with your time besides for running a company? What are the things that you have learned to love to do?

What are you filling your time with? A lot of golf. I love, I love golf. I would say I golf four to five times a week. so that's kind of really what I've been just going straight into it. It allows me to spend a lot of time with my dad. He's a big golfer. So I've really started putting my priorities on family and hanging out with them, especially because I'm going to be leaving in six months. So I'm very invested now in golf. I love golf. But I would also say that

I'm being able to spend a lot more time doing my devotions and my quiet time, spending time with God now that it's not football's very a go go go lifestyle and 5 a.m. lifts and practice here and a game here and watching film. And now that I kind of have a lot of my time back, I've been able to spend a lot more time with God. And it's been very eye-opening for me in a lot of ways. But it's also, it's helped me directly in my business and figuring out my future and where I want to go to school and the things that I want to do.

That's amazing. And so one more question for you. Talk to me a little bit about after college. So you're not playing sports anymore. That's not the avenue that you're going to be able to take in order to share your testimony. So what are the ways that you're going to be sharing the name of the Lord in college? You know, you're surrounded by like-minded people. So outside of college, after college, how are you going to create a platform for yourself to be sharing the gospel and sharing the miracles that Christ has done in your life? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be doing exactly what I'm doing right now going on podcasts like these, going on interviews, and really just making this a part of who I am and just when I'm talking to people in my day-to-day life, just being able to share this story, obviously, in a little bit of a quicker fashion. But, you know, I made a YouTube video describing both of my injuries and how Jesus worked through that. So it's as easy as, you know, hey, let me send you this link. So there's a lot of ways that I've done, I've kind of made it easy to get my story out there and to show people because it's powerful. And a miracle is definitely not something that I'm supposed to, you know, just be really thankful for and keep inside. So I would say that my testimony is kind of all encompassing of who I am.

And I can't go through my day-to-day life without being grateful and being thankful and sharing it. So wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, that's always going to be who I am. and it's always going to be something that I'm sharing with other people. Yeah, and our pastor always says that the definition of testimonies to do it again. And so that's what you're doing. You're sharing that. And spreading the word of the Lord with people who may or may not know about him, maybe they don't know about the miracles that he can perform in their lives.

So I think that that's really awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today, Austin, and for sharing your testimony with us in this short amount of time. Thank you again for having me. And thank you for listening. This is the Charger Rundown on Radio Free Hillsdale, a one-on-one.7 FM.