 McGonnigal played high school football at Loyola High School where he helped the Dons end a long losing streak to archrival Calvert Hall in the annual Turkey Bowl game his senior year.MCGonnigal graduated in 1986.McGonnigal has become an integral part of football folklore at the University of Virginia, where many fans tell varying accounts of how McGonnigal was injured while searching for his girlfriend's dog, some time prior to the game against Georgia Tech in 1990.