For the past two years, Judy O’Connor has attended every one of her son’s classes at Chapman University.
Marty O’Connor, 29, has been paralyzed from the shoulders down for almost five years. His mother, a retired elementary school teacher, has been his official note-taker.
Orange resident Judy O’Connor joined her son at Chapman University on Saturday, May 20, for his MBA graduation.
As they stopped for a graduation photo on the main stage, an announcement came over the loudspeaker: Judy O’Connor would receive an honorary MBA — a “thank you” from her son and the university.
The stunned mom blew a kiss to the crowd of standing Chapman graduates.
“It was a wonderful privilege to be able to do this for him,” Judy O’Connor said minutes after the ceremony.
“You get a spinal cord injury — I couldn’t fix it, but I could do this for him,” she said.
It was Marty O’Connor’s idea to honor his mother. He and the university kept it a secret until graduation.
“She’s been instrumental in the past two years,” he said. “There’s no way I would have achieved my level of success without her.”
Katie O’Brien came in from Ohio to see her brother graduate.
“I know how much this means to the both of them,” she said. “It’s really nice to be celebrating such a happy day.”
Marty O’Connor’s graduation came almost five years after he fell down a flight of fire-escape stairs in on Aug. 12, 2012, leaving him unable to use his arms or legs.
Earlier that day, he had played golf and went to an Angels matinee game before hanging out with friends in Newport Beach. O’Connor’s fall led to a C3/C4 compression in his cervical spine.
“After I got hurt, I kind of thought everything was lost and I didn’t really have a future,” Marty O’Connor said. “In the past two years, I’ve really found out how much I can still achieve. There’s new strengths that I have that I didn’t have before.”
After the accident, O’Connor worked out at rehabilitation facilities and began using a wheelchair. In 2013, O’Connor and his mother attended the Angels home opener and got to meet several Angel players, including former slugger Mark Trumbo, whom Judy O’Connor taught sixth-grade to at Linda Vista Elementary in Orange.
He enrolled at Chapman in 2015 and plans on working with a youth action sports startup as head of corporate sponsorships.
Debra Gonda, director of graduate business programs at Chapman, met Marty and his mother at a recruiting event a few years ago.
Gonda served as his academic adviser for the past two years. She could only think of one instance in her 20-plus years at Chapman where an honorary degree was bestowed.
“She really put in a lot of time with Marty on this,” Gonda said. “I know as a mother, this (the honorary degree) is not something she would expect or want. She would want the light to shine on Marty, but she certainly does deserve it.”
After the graduation ceremony, the O’Connors took family photos before getting ready for their big celebration: a Chris Stapleton concert at the Forum.
