The Story Of This Browns Receiver Lying and Conning His Way To The NFL Is Straight Out Of A Movie
Okay so Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi will be out there catching passes from Baker Mayfield (and more often from 3rd stringer Garrett Gilbert) today at Browns OTAs. He’s a long shot…..but he has a shot….to make the roster this preseason. But the story is not where Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi is now, it’s how he got here. The Cleveland Plain Dealer just ran an article on how he became a Cleveland Brown, and it is absolutely bananas. A real-life movie. It all started back in 2016, the last time he played football.
He had been a junior college All-American kick returner for Phoenix College (not to be confused with the University of Phoenix online school). But when his 2016 season didn’t earn him a scholarship at Phoenix, he went in search of bigger opportunities.
Okay, I get you Damon. You balled out on special teams at a community college, but you couldn’t get a scholarship so you packed your bags. And apparently he took his game film to as many big-time schools as he could.
Armed with a credit card and determination (and his game film), Sheehy-Guiseppi went on a tour of Division I universities in early 2017, hoping for a chance to show what he could do. The trip to SEC and Big 12 schools wasn’t very fruitful.
Damn, no one wanted to give him a chance. But also, apparently no one could give him a chance, seeing as he was still 9 credits short to even transfer from Phoenix. He also had no money to get those 9 credits. So with going back to school no longer being an option, he decided to try and go pro with a rather ambitious plan.
“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.
You know, the old professional walk-on move. The Vince Papale. But again, nothing worked. Not even in the CFL or Arena Football League.
He drove to Las Vegas for a CFL tryout, paid his $100 to participate, ran a 40, did his workout, and then, nothing. An Arena Football League tryout for multiple teams in Atlanta didn’t work out, either.
All looked lost for Sheehy-Guiseppi, until he finally found himself a stroke of luck. One of his connections that he met through playing in a FLAG FOOTBALL league had found the address of a true NFL workout. Damon got the address and headed to Florida, with the only problem being that he wasn’t invited to the invite-only event. The connection gave him one piece of advice for when he got there: look for Alonzo Highsmith at the workout.
Okay, so he had to find this guy that worked for the Browns. He was the guy who’s name would stick at the workout. He had to pretend he knew Alonzo Highsmith.
Sheehy-Guiseppi made it to Miami and headed to the workout, where he was met with confusion. But he was prepared for that.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi. I’m here for the tryout.”
“Do you know Alonzo?”
“Yeah, I know Alonzo.”
So they let him in! No invite, but he knew Alonzo. So he was officially in. And he immediately ran right to Alonzo and introduced himself so his story wouldn’t fall apart later. And then finally, he got his chance to shine in front of real NFL scouts.
The workout began and Sheehy-Guiseppi stood out. He caught punts, he caught passes, and, best of all, his 40 time was 4.38. Only five wide receivers at the 2019 NFL combine ran faster than that.
4.38 will get you invited to an official tryout, whether you originally had an invite to be at the workout or not. And it sure did, less than 30 minutes later he was invited to tryout for the Cleveland Browns. Pretty crazy story, right? Not even close to over. The tryout was in Cleveland, in a week, and Sheehy-Guiseepi had no money. He could barely even get to Cleveland, let alone find a hotel.
So Sheehy-Guiseppi improvised, sleeping outside, sleeping at a 24-hour fitness center, and then outside a training facility he was using to prepare for his workout.
This is a real-life Major League story. Willie Mayes Hayes, who hits like Mayes and runs like Hayes, showed up at Indians spring training without an invite and without a place to sleep.
And just like Willie Mayes Hayes, Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi impressed everyone, including the big dick swinger in Cleveland, Mr. John Dorsey.
“We got a chance to see him for ourselves and you could see all of the explosive movement stuff that Alonzo was talking about,” said GM John Dorsey. “Then when you watch him field kicks and punts, you are going, ‘OK, he can do this kind of stuff.’
Okay, buddy boy. You’ve got the big man’s attention now. Make the team, and they might just make a movie about you. Return a kickoff for a touchdown in the Super Bowl this year, and we’ll build you a god damn statue.