These are the best of times.
Few will regret the time they spent playing GAA with their college.
For most lads, college is something entirely new. You’re taking a step out of your comfort zone, you’re living away from home for the first time, you’re meeting a whole host of new people.
It is a daunting experience at first because all of these new surroundings take some getting used to but for GAA players, it’s that little bit easier to settle in.
Every single third level college in the country has a GAA team. Everywhere there’s a GAA team, there is hope.
That’s because a GAA team knits its members together like few other things can. That’s because these teammates, these lads who go out as strangers to one another in that first Freshers training session, these are the lads who become friends for life.
These are the lads who’ll live together in second year, the lads who’ll go out on the town together every week. These are the lads who’ll sing songs together down the back of a forty seater bus on away days. These are the lads who’ll swim together, who’ll go to the gym together, who’ll cook food together every day.
College GAA is a special thing. The teams are composed of players from different counties but rivalries go out the window as soon as they’re part of the same team. Then they’re back again when they meet at the weekends for an inter-county clash.
Luke Connolly is one of Cork’s best footballers now. The Nemo Rangers ace is that elusive forward that every county craves, that class act who can construct a score from nothing.
But there was a time when Connolly, due to a combination of a lack of form and the effort of it all, considered packing it all in to embark on a career in soccer.
“We had a poor season with the club at senior level. I had two months of freedom, so I went back playing soccer.
“The Cork under-21s were back in training like six months before a ball would be kicked. I saw red. I couldn’t fathom going back and doing gym for two or three nights a week over the Christmas, not being able to enjoy myself.
“I remember playing Douglas in a senior club game and I couldn’t get into the team. Soccer was going well and I was thinking, maybe I’m backing the wrong horse here.”
UCC changed that for him.
A group of lads of similar ages and interests coming together for the first time and building a team spirt. That’s the buzz. That’s this atmosphere.
“I was with UCC. The Sigerson panel was something different. There was so many good young players in the one place, and you just fed off that environment, that atmosphere.
It was something different. Rather than playing with the same club mates, under the same managers and under the same places, everything was new and was different. That changed it all for him.
“I was playing poor with the club, playing well at soccer, but I was playing well with UCC. I was feeding off what was around me, a lot of great players, the likes of Paul Geaney and Michael Quinlivan.
“You couldn’t not play well with them.
Connolly had dropped himself off of the Cork under-21 panel. A word of advice from his college manager Billy Morgan changed it all for him.
“I was trotting out for training one night. He called me aside, what he said to me, I can’t repeat it but it was along the lines of, ‘you can’t be cutting your ties at this stage, are you mad? The language was a bit more colourful than that but it worked and I will always thank him for that.
“I ended up winning the Sigerson a year later with UCC. I went onto captain them in my final year. My career kicked on from there.”
Now the 25-year-old is one of the most feared danger men in the country. Now he’s planning for big things with his county.
Luke Connolly rattles the net for the second time, as Nemo increase their lead in Extra-Time! pic.twitter.com/iOglOSEllw
— The GAA (@officialgaa) February 24, 2018
That’s the importance of college’s GAA.
You can listen to the Connolly interview and much more from Thursday’s GAA Hour Show here.
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