California University of Pennsylvania Athletics

“Dale Hamer, a NFL referee and California alumni, had written me a letter, and in it he wrote that this isn’t Canton (Ohio, where the NFL Hall of Fame is), but it is something big,” said Cal Hall of Fame inductee Terry O’Shea. “That struck me. It is quite an honor to be selected for things that I did here.”

O’Shea was a starting tight end for the Vulcans from 1986 until 1988. He was a three-time, first-team all-PSAC selection, and in 1988 he was a Harlon Hill, the Heisman for Division II, regional finalist.

Other honors that O’Shea received during his senior season were being named a small college All-American, being the team MVP and being the team captain.

Even though O’Shea excelled in football while at Cal, he said that he wasn’t a good player in high school at Seton LaSalle in Pittsburgh. He said that he played all four years, but didn’t win any awards or get any honors.

Obviously the transition from high school to college was what O’Shea needed to improve, and he said that coming to California was the best choice that he could have made.

“I was recruited by smaller schools, but California was the only one that was going to give me money ($100 for books), and they threw the ball a lot. Being a tight end, I liked to catch the ball, so that sounded promising to me,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea vividly recalls some of the more interesting moments that happened during his time with the Vulcans. “During my senior year, we were coming into camp, and we would have had one of the best teams here in a long time,” O’Shea said. “We have five huge starting linemen who quit in camp because they decided that they weren’t being treated fairly. We ended up 2-8.”

Another interesting story that O’Shea remembers quite well is about a game that they played during his junior season in Salem, W.V. He said that all it did was pour down rain, and Sam Mannery, the quarterback at the time, threw a couple of interceptions.

“It was horrible. After the game, we were in the locker room, which looked like a shed with stools. We came out and went to get on the bus, and the bus driver that we called ‘Pedro’ tried to pull out,” O’Shea reminisced.

“The bus didn’t move. We were stuck in the mud. So, a bunch of us brainstorming football players got out and tried to push this couple ton bus out of the mud. It didn’t work, so we decided to quit and strike up a baseball game,” he continued.

“We were playing this mock baseball game when out of nowhere , a guy named Ralph Viliogtti gets off the bus completely naked and gets on third base. Someone pretended to hit the ball, and Ralph did a suicide naked slide into home plate,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea’s remarkable college career ended with 123 catches for 1,429 yards and six touchdowns, but that wasn’t the end of his playing days, which he tried to predict earlier.

In an article from the California Times in 1986, O’Shea explained that he was going to try to make it into the NFL. He said, “You can’t go through life wondering how far you might have gone.”

O’Shea ended up realizing his dream of playing in the NFL, and he became one of only a few Vulcan football players who were able to climb up to that next level.

“I had a free agent tryout, and thee teams contacted me: the New Orleans Saints, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers,” O’Shea explained. “The first tryout that I took was with the Steelers. The tryout went well, and I was able to sign with Pittsburgh. “I decided to look no further. It was awesome (playing for a hometown team). It was great because I grew up watching the Steelers, and it was a dream come true,” O’Shea continued.

The first season that O’Shea played for the Steelers, the team consisted of about 15 rookies, which supposedly wasn’t a good team. But that group of guys changed everyone’s views.

“We started off with our first game at home against Cleveland, and we lost 52-0. It was a Murphy’s Law game: everything that could go wrong went wrong. The next game we lost 41-10 to Cincinnati. After that, they came back to beat Minnesota and started to come along,” O’Shea explained.

“What ended up was that we made the playoffs as a wild card and had to go down to play Houston on New Year’s Eve. We played really good, and Gary Anderson kicked a field goal in overtime to beat them. We weren’t supposed to be a good team, but we ended up doing real well in the playoffs, losing to Denver by one point,” he continued.

O’Shea ended up playing two years for the Steelers until he was cut from the team before the 1991 season. He then went on to play in the World Football League for the Barcelona Dragons.

“It was a blast playing football over there (in Spain). We had so much fun,” O’Shea said. “Next to college, it was probably the most fun I had playing football. There was no pressure, you just went out and played and practiced a couple of days a week.”

Although O’Shea was contacted by the Buffalo Bills before heading to Spain, he explained that he wanted to play for the Dragons in order to gain playing experience, experience that he knew he wasn’t getting while playing for the Steelers.

But that experience ended up costing O’Shea his football career.

“I hurt my back. It was going great until I got hurt. After that, I decided that one injury was enough, but I would not trade it for the world, though.” O’Shea explained.

As a matter of fact, O’Shea did have the opportunities to go back to the same teams that originally asked him to try out, but two things held him back.

Firstly he explained that he wasn’t in shape, and secondly, he said that he wanted to get married, which was something that may not have happened if he continued to play.

However, when it comes down to it, O’Shea said that he would still like to be playing. He explained that he doesn’t think that any player likes to go out on an injury, but that he isn’t upset with the way things ended.

O’Shea also explained that being inducted into Cal’s hall of fame is an excellent way to close the book on his playing career.

”California was where I was helped into making myself into a good football player. My coaches and teammates did a lot for me. This was where I became a football player, so this is a good final chapter,” O’Shea concluded.

Terry O'Shea was a tight end on the Vulcan football team from 1984-88. He was a three-year starter from 1986-88, and finished his career with 123 career catches for 1,429 yards and six touchdowns. O'Shea was a three-time first-team All-PSAC selection and a 1988 Associated Press All-American. O'Shea was a redshirt member of Cal's 1984 PSAC championship squad and helped in the 1986 and 1987 Vulcans record-winning seasons and .500 showings in the PSAC-West. During his senior season, O'Shea was fifth among all PSAC receivers with 42 catches for 553 yards and three touchdowns.

He was also a 1988 Harlon Hill regional finalist, which is the Division II's version of the Heisman Trophy. He went on to play two seasons with the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers. O'Shea helped the Steelers advance to the 1989 playoffs and after the 1991 season he went on to play in the World Football League for the Barcelona Dragons.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Pa., and a graduate of Seton LaSalle High School, O'Shea served as a volunteer football assistant coach in the early 1990's. He now resides in Greensburg with his wife, Amy, where he is a landfill salesman with U.S.A. Waste Company.