Former Steelers player Ray Seals, who made it to the NFL despite skipping college, dead at 59

Ray Seals’ path to the NFL was improbable. But the former semipro football player reached the highest level of professional football. 

Seals’ journey in life came to an end this week. Social media user Nini Marie and Syracuse.com confirmed Seals’ death. He was 59. 

His cause of death was not immediately released.

Seals’ football story began at Henninger High School in Syracuse, New York. Instead of making the leap to the college football ranks, Seals’ journey took him to the semipros.

Seals’ high school coach, Bob Campese, remembered the former defensive lineman as a “happy-go-lucky” person.

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“(He was) a happy-go-lucky, big, kind-hearted guy who was a tremendous athlete, probably as good or better than any athlete that ever came out of here, really,” Campese said, via Syracuse.com. “We had some good ones. But Ray might have been at the top.”

Despite never playing a snap in college football, Seals signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1988. By 1991, he was consistently in the Bucs’ starting lineup. He also had stints with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Carolina Panthers.

Seals was inducted into the Greater Syracuse Hall of Fame in 2016, according to the bio provided by the hall.

Seals started playing for the semipro Syracuse Express in 1987.

Ray Perkins, who coached at Alabama before leaving to accept the head coaching job with the Buccaneers, is largely credited with giving Seals a chance to play in the NFL.

“We were all behind him. We were rooting for him like you couldn’t believe, to have that opportunity to make it,” Seals’ former Express teammate, Garry Acchione, said. “I never had a doubt in my mind that he was good enough to play in the NFL. I mean, we all knew it. It’s just, ‘OK, how do you get him there? How does he get the opportunity?’ 

“Because, back then, I mean, he didn’t come out of college. You’re not going to just walk onto a pro team and make it.”

Seals, who played for the Steelers from 1994-95, recorded a sack in the Super Bowl at the end of the 1995 season.

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