From leading his Our Savior's Class of 2020 through a school fight with Adminstration to guiding Lutheran High Basketball through a quick rebuild, Conor McCaffrey will say that his accolades are great, but his relationships with people is where he has fallen short.
Conor McCaffrey comes from a wealthy family, his father Sean just checked in at around $1,000,000 earned last year, and Conor says that has had a major effect on his life.
"From such a young age, I was always told 'DON'T show off how much you have, don't be a bragger.' Well you do that for so long and when high school arrives, all of a sudden you want to show off a little more, almost as if it is a game." - McCaffrey said.
"I was still a child. I hadn't grown up yet."
"My reputation with certain people bothered me at Lutheran, I was kinda seen as the rich kid who lies about stuff. That stuff tore at me every single day my Junior year, I had grown out of it, but my reputation was still tarnished.
Tristyn Carlove asked Conor; "Do you feel that you were so desperate to find someone who you could relate too that you just sort of did things to get them to try and notice you?"
"Totally, like I said earlier, I was just a kid still, a deer in headlights, totally lost, and I made a couple real pushes, some really bad pushes. But that needed to happen, up to that point I had gotten everything I wanted, so it was a really big growing moment for me."
"I went through something bad my sophmore year, something I wasn't educated on and it backfired terribly... Something I feel so sorry for that I can't even put it into words, I still get upset with myself to this day for all of the drama I caused"
Tristyn asked Conor "Do you wish that situation never happened?
"I'm glad it happened, it was something I needed to learn, it had to happen, or else I would still be. I wish I would have handled it better and been, let's say a little smarter, but the outcome needed to stay the same, the outcome staying the same let me begin this new path I'm on.
After a couple of more topics, Dawson Strauch wanted to get the full rundown on the McCaffrey-Skeeters situation.
"What exactly happened? Because you two were on facetime every night, and hung out every single day for almost 3 months."
Conor replied with "I can't even really tell you, we sort of just bonded together randomly, I can't say anyone really started anything, she went after me and I went after her. She'd call me at 11 at night asking to talk and I answered. So neither one of us stopped it and we both got super close. I can't tell you how it happened because it was just something I can't explain.
"Why didn't you stop?" Tristyn asked.
"If you look at it from my point of view, this is the first girl whose my age that has shown intrest in me. 1. She has a boyfriend of 3 years, which I thought was strange and kept me on my heels. 2. Her parents loved Jace and I so I had that card in my bag. 3. She would openly change her sleep schedule to adjust to mine, and we'd talk for 2-3 hours every night. So from my point of view, I wasn't entirely sure what she was doing."
It wasn't until Conor's childhood friend Jeremiah Perkins lost his battle to cancer on August 10th, 2023. Just 2 days before senior year was about to start.
"I've been learning a lot recently, after Jeremiah it just all clicked, I just grew up, the lies and being a child with the jokes were over, life was serious now, and it was time for me to grow up with it." Conor said about how his lies and jokes dug him a deep hole in life as a sophmore.
"I stopped it immediately after he got sick going into my junior year, but reputation wise, it stuck, it wasn't until the class of 23 left that I could finally be who I wanted to be." Conor added.
"My lost passion for basketball stems from Jeremiah. He was there every game, even though Jace is my best friend and best teammate I ever had, Jeremiah was with me through the OS and LUHI basketball years, he was there when the rebuild started, he was there when my social life was in purgatory."
"I stuck around to help out with you under classmen, there are a lot of things I could tell you and teach you guys, give you guys sort of a player coach who could relay the messages to Ferris, but after the NB Thanksgiving tournament, I was done."
Tristyn mentions how Conor, Charlene Gleason and Jeremiah were all together with one privately conversation the day of his death.
"I don't like to go into that conversation a whole lot, I learned a lot of things about Charlene and I learned a lot of things about myself. He told me everything that I was doing wrong and that I could be doing better, and since that conversation, it's changed me.