After tearing his labrum twice, breaking his leg and changing his primary sport, senior Mikey McGrath committed to play Division III football at Williams College in January of this year.
Primarily playing baseball and some basketball when he was younger, McGrath never played organized tackle football until high school. “I always thought that I was going to play baseball in college,” he said.
Because McGrath tore his labrum in both sophomore and junior years, McGrath lost almost two full seasons of baseball as well as the ability to train in the offseason. His injuries forced him to give up his dream of playing collegiate baseball.
“My baseball college hopes didn’t really pan out and I didn’t think football was going to be an option either,” he said.
Yet, McGrath still had an impressive senior year football season: he won CCS Offensive Player of the Year despite his labrum making it almost impossible for him to throw as a quarterback. In fact, McGrath wouldn’t throw during practice in order to save his arm for gameday. “Then I’d down like four Advil before the game and make it work,” he said.
Not thinking much of it, he posted some of his highlights on Twitter and directly messaged some DIII coaches, particularly from the New England Small College Athletic Conference. He got some responses and realized his hopes of playing college sports were not yet over.
McGrath had offers from Middlebury College and Washington University in St. Louis, but they were both for defensive back, which was unappealing to him. So when he received an offer for quarterback at Johns Hopkins University, where friend and former teammate, Robby Enright (‘23) plays, he thought it was a no brainer.
“I thought [Johns Hopkins] was for sure where I was going to go and I was super excited about that,” he said.
McGrath also received an offer for quarterback at Williams, but said that the offer from Williams was an afterthought compared to Johns Hopkins. Still, he decided to visit both Johns Hopkins and Williams due to both being on the East Coast. After his visits, McGrath made his decision.
“Williams was a better fit for me in terms of location. I think I’ll enjoy being closer to nature and closer to the mountains,” he said. “Everybody had nothing bad to say about the place and I’ve heard really good things about it [from alumni], so I’m pretty excited.”
Looking back, the way events unfolded was almost serendipitous for McGrath. “I always thought baseball would be my chance to play in college […], but I’m definitely happy that I’m playing football and not baseball in college.”
He looks forward to playing in the NESCAC in particular, where many Menlo football players have and will play. These players include one of McGrath’s best friends and wide receiver for Menlo, senior Brady Jung who committed to Amherst — Williams’ biggest rival.
