At Great Valley High School, Connor Gal was a local phenom. During his senior year, the Malvern native averaged 19 points per game, earning first-team all-conference honors in the process. With his grand finale of a season coming to a close, his attention began to shift towards the next step of his basketball journey.
The collegiate search, however, would not share the same sparkle as his final year.
Gal would receive little attention from both Division I and II schools. Instead, his only opportunities came in the form of non-scholarship offers from Division III schools. He decided to look elsewhere, as what he wanted didn’t align with what was available. For Gal, facing this reality would lead to exploring other possibilities.
“After that, I was kind of gearing towards going to a bigger school,” Gal said. “…I never really wanted to go to a smaller school, which were the only opportunities I was getting. So, I went [to] Temple.”
When he arrived on Broad Street, thoughts began to swirl. Perhaps, he believed, the journey was not over.
“I was like ‘damn,’” Gal said. “I don’t know if I want to give up on it.”
So, he began sending emails to everyone he could reach. Eventually, a member of Temple’s then-Head Coach Aaron McKie’s staff reached out for game film and notified him of upcoming tryouts. After an eternity of uncertainty, Gal finally got his chance. The rest quickly became history.
Gal would join fellow walk-on A.K. Fihla as the newest Owl on the team in October of 2022. These two were not the only ones on the squad who took this route, though. At the time of the two’s integration, fellow guard Ryan Sayers was years into his collegiate athletic career. Coach McKie envisioned the new duo taking a similar path to Sayers.
“Connor and AK are two hard-working, talented young men…” McKie said at the time of their arrival. “…Their energy and skill will challenge our guys daily in practice, like third-year walk-on Ryan Sayers continues to do.”
As the season progressed, Sayers would show Gal the ropes. Although their path was unorthodox, the team’s core values helped the two integrate seamlessly.
“He helped me get comfortable,” Gal said. “He told me how to be a good team player and how to approach college in general the right way.”
As Gal’s inaugural season ended, so did Sayers’s tenure with the team. From then on, it was Gal’srole to embrace. Luckily for him, the team would also embrace him.
“I felt [less] like a walk-on and more just like a normal player in the last three years,” Gal said. “…I’ve had a lot of people make different impacts on me in positive ways, and it’s been a great experience.”
Now, Gal is in the home stretch of his senior year at the school that he took a chance on, a decision that once carried doubt but ultimately defined his college experience. From hopeful emails to a place within a Division I school he once coveted, the experience has broadened his perspective not only on basketball, but also on himself.
“If I pursued just not playing basketball, I don’t know what my life would look like,” Gal said. “But, I know it wouldn’t look like this.”