The Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi story is an amazing one.
The young wide receiver had been a junior college All-American kick returner at Phoenix College, but left the school in 2016 when he did not receive a scholarship. Sheehy-Guiseppi toured numerous Division I universities in hopes of getting a shot, but only one school even bothered to watch his tape.
His trip to these schools did cost him a lot of money and also turn up some bad news: Sheehy-Guiseppi had just one year of eligibility remaining, but was nine credits short of being able to transfer. He didn’t have enough money to transfer, so he decided he just needed to go pro.
“I’m going to go to Florida and start with the Tampa Bay Bucs and I’m going to go to every facility I can, go all the way across the country and see if I can just walk in there and give it a shot,” he said to reporters, including Scott Patsko of Cleveland.com.
Sheehy-Guiseppi stayed in Arizona for a year, training to become a better player while also looking for opportunities. He soon drove to Las Vegas for a CFL tryout, paid the hefty $100 fee to participate, ran a 40, did his workout … and nothing. What happened next disappointed him greatly.
“We don’t really take anybody off the tryouts,” he was told.
“So you’re telling me that out of the 100 cases here that tried out, you’re not going to take any of them?” he asked.
“Yeah, we already have a full team.”
“So there was no point.”
But patience paid off, as he got some good news earlier this year when a friend of his knew of an NFL workout in Miami. The only problem was that it was invite-only, and Sheehy-Guiseppi wasn’t invited. Still, he got the address and headed to Florida.
His friend told him to look for Alonzo Highsmith, the Browns’ vice president of player personnel. The non-invite arrived in Miami to a bunch of confusion from the staff at the tryout.
Who are you?”
“I’m Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi. I’m here for the tryout.”
“Do you know Alonzo?”
“Yeah, I know Alonzo.”
He was in. But to fortify his story, he ran over to Highsmith to him and introduced himself.
“I just knew I had to make it look like we were friends,” Sheehy-Guiseppi said. “Alonzo was real nice to me.”
And believe it or not, he was one of the best players at the tryout. He ran fast, he caught punts, and he caught passes. He also caught Highsmith’s attention. The Browns executive called Sheehy-Guiseppi just minutes after the tryout and gave him an official invite to a tryout in Ohio.
