His match was headed to a third set, and Conner McVay was pacing back and forth on the tennis courts at Crawfordsville High School.
Leading Northview 2-1, Southmont boys’ tennis was on the verge of a regional win, and McVay was ready to capture the moment. While No. 2 doubles was winning, McVay could have waited and played a super-tiebreaker third set in his No. 3 singles match, but he didn’t want it to end that way.
“Crawfordsville’s AD told coach that if I wait I could just play a superset, but I just wanted to keep going because if I waited he was going to get on a roll,” he said. “And I was just thinking that I have to do this for myself as a personal goal and I’m not going to let anyone else determine how I end.”
McVay and the No. 2 doubles team won propelling the Mounties to the regional final.
Next week McVay will suit up for the beginning of his senior basketball campaign, and in a flash it will all be over. But, unlike many other kids his age, McVay has a vision for when the time comes to put his tennis racket on the shelf and unlace his basketball shoes.
Enter flying.
“Ever since I was a kid I would just watch them fly and always thought it was cool,” he said. “Dad and I would go to air shows together and just watch them for hours.”
“Just the rush,” McVay continued about the sensation of flying. “When you get up there and you can see everything. Most people never get to experience that. So just the fact that you can say ‘hey I flew a plane today is super cool.’”
Over the last couple of months McVay has spent his afternoons away from Southmont High School and at the Crawfordsville Regional Airport working closely with airport manager Lori Curless, while taking lessons to work toward his private pilot license.
“It’s nice being able to see how it all works, and talk with different pilots,” he said “Getting connections with different pilots. It’s just nice to be here and around the environment.”
McVay hopes that trading in high school athletics for a career in aviation will help fill that void left behind.
“It’ll definitely keep me busy,” he said. “Getting my private license early is definitely going to put me ahead of others. So it will help me get in and be advanced. Flight school will definitely replace athletics in a lot of ways.”
While Purdue is the No. 1 school on his current college list, McVay knows that activities like sports have helped prepare him for success no matter where he ends up.
“I’ve seen that no matter how the game is going or what’s going on that I just keep fighting and keep pushing until the very end,” he said. “Because you never know in sports or a job somebody can take your spot. So you have to keep grinding until you can’t do it anymore.”
After helping Southmont to their first boys’ tennis sectional title since 1991, McVay hopes to replicate the same success on the hardwood this winter.
“I hope to see as a team we are more successful, and I’m personally successful,” he said. “I want to be the hardest working player in practice every day and in games, and I just want people to know me as who I am and how hard I work as opposed to what I’ve done.”
No matter the outcome of the upcoming season though, the hard work will continue to pay off long after the final buzzer sounds, as McVay plans to chase his dream of becoming a commercial pilot.
Southmont senior Conner McVay can see his future bright and clear. He can see it from thousands of feet above the earth.
