Members
Inductee
MC CONNELL, TOM
MC CONNELL, TOM
Born on October 19, 1966
Gary, Indiana
Inducted On
May 4, 2025
Location Inducted
Merrillville, Indiana
Region Number
1
Crown Point High School
Player
Crown Point High School
1985
Tom participated in football, basketball and baseball while at Crown Point, starting two years in football. After his senior season, he was named All-Lake Suburban Conference, All-Region, and All-Area, AP and UPI 1st Team All-State, Bloomington Herald Top 33, Academic All-State, and participated in the North-South All-Star game in 1985. In his senior season, Crown Point football accomplished its first regular season undefeated (10-0). He was also named All-Lake Suburban Conference basketball player in his senior year.
Harvard
B.S. in Economics, cum laude.
1989
Tom attended and played four years of football at Harvard University, graduating in 1989 with a degree in Economics, cum laude. Per Ivy League rules, he played freshman football starting as a defensive tackle. In his sophomore year, he was a starting defensive tackle on the varsity team. During his junior year, he shifted to nose guard and was one of the leaders on the Ivy League's top-ranked defensive unit in 1987, earning All-Ivy League individual honors. Harvard finished that year with an 8-2 record and earned an undisputed Ivy League title by beating its arch-rival, Yale 14-10 in a winner-take-all title game in New Haven, CT. Tom's senior year was shortened due to a pre-season knee injury but returned to start three games before another leg injury ended his college career.
Upon graduating from Harvard, Tom played one year of semi-professional football in Barcelona, Spain for the Barcelona Boxers of the Catalonia Football Conference of the Spanish Football League. As a two-way player (TE and DL), he led the Boxers to an undefeated 1990 season that culminated in a Spanish Football League Super Copa (Bowl) victory against the Madrid Osos (Bears), a game played in front of 25,000 fans in what became the first organized sporting event held in Barcelona's Olympic Stadium, which was newly built for the 1992 games.
Tom has been married for 26 years to his wife, Jennifer, and has two adult daughters, Kyra and Haley.
Tom earned an MBA degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1998 and has enjoyed a 26-year career in the wealth management industry. He is currently a Managing Director and senior partner of the McConnell Group at Merrill Lynch and lives in the Boston area.