INDIANOLA — Simpson College linebacker Michael Connor spent the final two years of his collegiate football career delivering crushing blows from his linebacker spot. So prolific was the former Woodward-Granger standout that he was the only member of the American Rivers Conference (formerly IIAC) to earn All-American status, as he was chosen for the Second Team by the American Football Coaches Association.
After roaming the gridiron and creating bruises, the hard-hitter says his career goal will be to help others heal, as he intends to enter nursing school after graduating next December.
“I just could not fit all the academics into a busy athletic schedule and working part-time each spring semester,” Connor said. “I will spend the fall of 2019 as a student coach for the football team and finish my degree, then start nursing school. I have not decided where yet, but I know that, in the end, my goal is to be a traveling nurse.”
Connor’s bedside manner will have to be diametrically opposed to his presence on the football field, where he earned American Rivers Conference Defensive MVP honors this season. He had 113 tackles, 8.5 sacks and 16 tackles for negative yardage. His 8.5 sacks were the most by a linebacker in Simpson history and is the first time since the 2014 season the conference sack leader was a linebacker.
“My goal this year was to help us win conference, and we finished second (to Wartburg) so that was disappointing,” he admitted. “I didn’t really have any personal goals set as far as individual awards. I did hope I might make all-conference, but the main thing was for us (as a team) to win our conference.”
“I was surprised and honored when the coaches told me I was the Defensive MVP,” Connor said. “But I was not expecting All-American at all, and just couldn’t believe it when they told me. It is very gratifying, and for me it means all those early morning workouts and all the hard work paid off.”
In every game of the season, Connor had either a sack, tackle for loss, forced fumble, interception or pass breakup.
Connor began his career as a fullback and didn’t see significant playing time until his junior season when he switched to defense. He is also a D3football.com Second Team All-West Region pick and a nominee for the Cliff Harris Award, which is presented to the top defensive player in the country representing Division II, III and NAIA colleges and universities.
His football playing days are over, the Storm standout said, but he admitted looking forward to serving on the sidelines as a student coach next fall. He repeatedly praised Simpson, saying he could not have been happier with his choice of collegiate studies.
“I made a visit here and immediately knew this was where I wanted to be,” Connor explained. “I love the atmosphere here, the professors I have had, the whole thing. Sports was important to me, but I chose Simpson as a college student, and my role as a college athlete was second to that. It was about how I would fit in as a student, and, as I said, I definitely made the right choice.”
“I can enter a class with 30 kids and know five or six of them,” he continued. “I can go and eat and have several friends to sit with. I know people from Woodward-Granger I went to school with who went to Iowa State or Iowa or some bigger school and I would run into them and they said they felt kind of lost, that it was just too big. That has never been a problem here — Simpson has been perfect for me.”
