Conor Gaffney

Classroom

Gaffney’s academic success is endless, currently owning a 3.94 cumulative GPA as a double major in mechanical engineering and integrated business and engineering (finance). Still with a year remaining, he has already tied a Patriot League record by winning the league’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year twice. If he wins it in 2020, he’d become the first student-athlete in program history to win it three times. Gaffney is a two-time Academic All-District honoree and Academic All-American. He’s a multi-time winner of the team’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year award.

Gaffney has put forth a perfect 4.0 semester GPA on multiple occasions and has been named to the Dean’s List (for a semester GPA of 3.6 or higher) every semester so far. Gaffney is doing this in two of Lehigh’s most demanding curriculum (mechanical engineering and finance) at a school that’s tied for 50th nationally in the U.S. News and World Report top national universities.

Gaffney is a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society, Pi Tau Sigma Mechanical Engineering Honors Society, and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Gaffney won the Elisha P. Wilbur Mathematics Award for the top performance in first-year engineering mathematics courses. He has an internship lined up with ExxonMobil for the coming summer and is planning on coming back to Lehigh for a fifth year through the President’s Scholarship program to get an engineering Master’s degree. The program recognizes outstanding academic achievement by undergraduate students by providing a fifth year of study free of tuition.

Character

Gaffney is a well-respected team member who has developed into a strong leader by example on the field, in the classroom, in the weight room and more. Gaffney has been heavily involved in Lehigh men’s lacrosse’s Leadership Council (council of voted-upon individuals from each class to handle the vision and goals of the team). In addition, integrity is an important component of Gaffney’s Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society Gaffney.

Gaffney has shown strong leadership in a number of other ways. He is the founder of South Jersey Faceoff Club, founding a youth faceoff instruction and training program that’s run in affiliation with the TRIBAL Lacrosse Club. Gaffney has developed and managed strong relationships with customers through effective communication, managing all logistics, promotions, and financials of the business.

Community

Gaffney and the Mountain Hawks have continually taken part in community service. Just a few days into every fall semester, the men’s lacrosse program holds its annual community service kickoff for the City of Bethlehem Parks and Recreation.

In each of the last three seasons, Lehigh has taken part in the Nicholas Colleluori Classic. Lehigh joined forces with the HEADstrong Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to providing essential services to improve lives affected by cancer. In 2017, Lehigh Lacrosse more than quadrupled its initial fundraising goal of $3,000 by raising $13,339 for HEADstrong’s 2017 “Go Lime” campaign. It was the most money raised by any team or group of teams in the entire campaign. Then in 2018, the Mountain Hawks absolutely shattered their goal, raising over $20,000 for the fight against cancer. The strong fundraising only continued in 2019.

In addition, every holiday season, Gaffney and the Mountain Hawks take part in Adopt-A-Family where they provide a holiday for a local underprivileged family. The process includes shopping for gifts, wrapping them and delivering them in early December. Gaffney also gave back to the community when he was a PPL Electric Utilities intern, taking part in Intern Community Day – completing various tasks to better the community’s appearance.

Competition

On the field, Gaffney has been equally as impressive. Recently, he was one of just two Patriot League players named a preseason All-American by Inside Lacrosse. The reigning Patriot League Faceoff Specialist of the Year and honorable mention USILA and Inside Lacrosse All-American, Gaffney set league and program records for faceoff wins (249) and groundballs (152) in a season when he was a junior. He finished fourth nationally in faceoff percentage, winning 69.7 percent, including 60 percent or better in 15-of-17 games. Gaffney has won a Patriot League weekly award 14 times in his career – seven as a freshman (Faceoff Specialist of the Week three times and Rookie of the Week four times), four as a sophomore, and three as a junior. Gaffney was named first team All-League as a sophomore, finishing first in the league with a 59.4 face-off percentage, which was good for 14th nationally. He also finished 17th in the nation in groundballs per game (5.94). Gaffney has played a key role in the team’s success, helping the Mountain Hawks to back-to-back Patriot League Championship Games. As a junior last season, he was named to the All-Tournament Team after winning 15-of-22 vs. Boston University then 18-of-22 (including 13 in a row end to the game) against Army West Point in a truly dominant effort. For his career, Gaffney has won 63.7 percent of his faceoffs (602-of-945) with 349 groundballs. In April of his junior season, Gaffney became the program’s all-time leader for career groundballs.