Joe Connolly '04 was a four-year member of the baseball team from 2001-2004 at the University of Hartford majoring in criminal justice and sociology. On the mound he made 48 appearances for the Hawks mainly as a relief pitcher. Connolly ended his career with three wins and a save at Hartford with 81.0 innings pitched and 46 strikeouts to his name.
Upon graduating from the Connolly would eventually go back to school at Bridgewater State University where he would find his passion working in strength and conditioning. Joe has found a home in the sports performance field working at schools such as Harvard, South Carolina, Louisville and the University of Massachusetts before eventually being named the Head Coach of Strength and Performance at Arizona State in 2018. Connolly has excelled since joining the Sun Devils as he was recently named the 2024 Football Scoop Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year, voted on by his peers after a historic season from the ASU football team.
To this day, Connolly holds a special relationship with Hartford Head Strength and Conditioning Coach
Emil Johnson who was a mentor and helped Joe find the passion he has for strength and conditioning.
"It's no surprise Joe has made it to the pinnacle of the profession", said Johnson. "Joe has an infectious personality that people gravitate towards and is a natural leader and communicator. It's been awesome to watch his career path and celebrate his successes along the way. Pumped for him to receive the recognition as 2024 Football Scoop Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year."
Recently we had the pleasure of sitting down with Connolly for the debut of our Hawk Highlights Alumni Series which will highlight the successes of Hartford alumni who continue to showcase HawkPride in their careers.
What is your current profession and what was your journey to get there?
I've been in the field of sports performance for for a while now. This is going to be season eight at Arizona State. Previous to that I did a two year stint as assistant athletic director for sports performance at the University of Massachusetts. Before that, I was a director of strength and conditioning at South Carolina for five years. I was at University of Louisville, Harvard University, and Bridgewater State University. So I've been been all over the country. For the majority of my career, my primary sport was with football and it has been a great thing.
What was your experience at Hartford like, how did that help you in what you are doing today?
It's funny for the majority of my sort of middle school and high school life, I was really, really focused on a bunch of different sports and I distinctly remember, like my main goal was always to play division one athletics. I didn't know which sport it was going to be, whether that was hockey, football or baseball. I think that at some point in time, I realized that I was probably a little bit better at baseball and I had a little bit more of a chance to actually play at that level and Harvey Shapiro at the time saw me at a showcase. I think it was at the University of Connecticut and we sent VHS tapes in at that time to try to get recruited. Ultimately I got the chance to to live my dream and play baseball at University of Hartford. I was a typical 18 to 22 year old knucklehead that probably didn't focus as well as I probably should have on the actual sport, but one thing I did learn in my time at Hartford was that I was actually pretty good at lifting weights. Oftentimes, to be honest I was probably better at the training than I was at the actual sport and
that kind of holds true with the ultimate decision for after, but it was a great experience for sure.
Was there any particular memory from your time at the University of Hartford that stands out as your favorite?
Whenever we would take our sort of February trip we would always kind of all hop in a bus and drive to Florida and then kind of play our way back living out of a bus or a hotel. That was always really interesting just being around the team and around the fellas. I made friends for life with a lot of those guys and I still talk to a lot of them. It was a tremendous experience and it was my teammates that made it a great experience. I think that was the biggest thing, whether we were hanging out on a Friday night or whether we were at practice on a Saturday morning. It was always a fun time. We had a good a good culture and a good team and those friendships will always be there.
How does it feel to be recognized today as the 2024 Football Scoop Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year?
Obviously it feels great. I'm humbled by it's something that I didn't really expect and the nice thing about that particular award is it's voted on by my peers from previous winners of the award. It's been around for 25 years and the only people that get votes are the former winners. So to me that certainly made me feel good. I don't really do well with attention. I'd rather kind of be in the corner in the shadow just kind of going about my business, but the honor has certainly brought a little bit more attention and it's something that I'll be able to have for for the rest of my career. Hopefully we win some more and at the end of the day I'm nothing without the players that I get a chance to train and coach and work with on a daily basis. They're the real ones that have to go on the field and perform and I'm just a piece to of the puzzle that tries make them into better human beings every day.
Can you talk about your relationship with Emil and how he helped you?
To go back when I got done playing at Hartford, I had a criminal justice and sociology degree and I was kind of lost. I was still messing around playing some baseball, I was training lifting weights and it was about two years of just spinning my wheels. I was on the fire department, I sold life insurance for New York life and I managed a landscape company just messing around trying to figure out what it was that I was passionate about. I sort of woke up one morning and I remember looking at my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife and being like I don't want to do any of this. I think I wanted to go try to do something in the field of exercise science, sports performance, something like that. She's like well what are you going to do? I reached out to a few people and Emil was one of the first people I called and I asked how do I do what you do and what do I need to do to get accredited? Emil helped me out with some of those decisions where I ultimately enrolled at Bridgewater State University in their master's program for strength and conditioning. Got the chance to compete on their Olympic weightlifting team while I was there and Emil spearheaded a lot of those things. I asked him where I needed to do my site visits and we ended up doing site visits all around New England to different strength and conditioning facilities and I ended up at Harvard. I walked in and sort of got enamored by the place and fell in love and just started working. I was just having so much fun learning. I'll be honest, I wasn't the greatest student at Hartford, but what I learned was I wasn't a great student because I wasn't choosing the right things to study and when I got a chance to study something that I was truly passionate about I graduated with honors. I had a perfect GPA in Graduate School because I loved to learn and I love to just absorb as much information as I could. Emil was a big part of that and he was also a big part of trying to keep a 18 to 21 year old in line while I was in college. Emil was a phenomenal resource for me. I consider him a friend and we talk often on a lot of different things, and I'm so happy he's back there because I know he's continuing to make a difference in the student-athletes at University of Hartford on a daily basis.
What would you tell current and future student-athletes?
The thing I would tell student-athletes is that you're there for a reason. If your reason is athletics then really spend the majority of your time focusing on athletics. Don't get caught up in the typical college environment. Yes you're going to go out and have a good time, but ultimately focus on the task at hand because you only get one shot at it. I think if you asked the majority of the guys that I played with or the athletes that I knew that were at University of Hartford at the time, they would all today go back and do it again with the knowledge they have now and what that comes down to is leaning on people like Emil, people like your head coach, your assistant coaches and listening to what they say. Be a little bit better version of yourself everyday and the choices you make matter. Emil I think tried to convey that every time I dealt with him every time we step foot in the training room and I think if I had listened a little bit better, maybe it would have been different. Ultimately, all our paths take us to wherever we are now for a reason, and I wouldn't change anything for the world.
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