The rookie wide receiver who slept on the grass outside a gym for a week before talking his way into a walk-on tryout with the Cleveland Browns proved it was all worth it when he got a touchdown during the team’s first preseason game Thursday.
Cleveland Browns rookie wide receiver Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi, 24, scored big time with an 86-yard punt return for a touchdown during his team’s preseason game against the Washington Redskins Thursday, prompting the whole team to run onto the field and dogpile him as they celebrated.
While the touchdown was worthy of celebration on its own, it’s likely the story of how Sheehy-Guiseppi’s landed on an NFL field in the first place that made it all the more sweet a success.
The moment when Cleveland Browns rookie wide receiver Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi, 24, caught a punt and ran 86 yards for a touchdown during Thursday’s preseason opener
All of Sheehy-Guseppi’s (right) teammates cleared the bench and rushed the field to celebrate his touchdown, the first of his new NFL career
Prior to signing with the Browns, Sheehy-Guiseppi hadn’t played on a traditional football team for two years.
He’d dropped out of Phoenix College, where he’d earned his All-American status as a kick returner, when they wouldn’t given him an athletic scholarship and was unable to convince Division I schools to watch his highlight reel, cutting off his shot of earning a scholarship there. He then devoted the interim two years to training for the NFL.
According to the Browns, in April, Sheehy-Guiseppi spent a week sleeping rough on the grass outside a Miami gym, showering and charging his cell phone at a laundromat, while waiting for the opportunity to convince the Browns to let him try out for the team in April.
Sheehy-Guiseppi, it turned out, had gotten a tip from a friend about the location and timing of the team’s spring practice and was so determined to get a tryout – potentially the only chance he’d ever have of making it onto an NFL team – that he cashed in the last of his mother’s rewards points to pay for a one-way flight from his Arizona home to Miami.
Once in Miami, Sheehy-Guiseppi turned up to a scouting event and, even though he wasn’t supposed to be there, managed to get through the doors by pretending he knew the team’s vice president of player personnel, Alonzo Highsmith.
Inside the event, he then saw Highsmith and introduced himself, making enough of an impression that Highsmith gave him the chance to run the 40-yard dash, coming in with an impressive time of 4.38 seconds.
Sheehy-Guiseppi (#15) made it onto the Cleveland Browns after he crashed a scouting session in Miami and performed well enough to be invited to a team practice in Ohio
Arizona-based Sheehy-Guiseppi didn’t have cash to fly home or stay in a hotel during the week between the tryout and practice so he slept on the grass outside a gym
Sheehy-Guiseppi (in orange) is shown during the game, wearing Odell Beckham Jr’s cleats
It turned out Sheehy-Guiseppi had misplaced his cleats before the game, so teammate Beckham Jr loaned him one of his customized pairs
Sheehy-Guiseppi (second from left), with his brothers, dropped out of college when he couldn’t get a scholarship and spent the last two years training for his NFL opportunity
Sheehy-Guiseppi’s speed and ball handling skills were apparently enough to give him a chance to join the Browns’ practice in Berea, Ohio, a week later.
Unfortunately, he was running out of money at that point and wasn’t able to fly back home before going to Ohio.
He had used his last $200 to pay for training services so he could keep working up until the tryout, leaving him little choice but to spend the week sleeping outdoors since he was unwilling to ask him mother for a loan since she was on a budget herself.
He said he used guest passes at a 24-hour fitness center, where he slept when he wasn’t sleeping on the grass outside the gym. He ate once or twice a day, thanks to the generosity of his mother and friends back in Arizona, who ordered food for him remotely.
The effort wound up paying off as, once he worked out with the team in Ohio, he impressed management enough that they gave him a contract and a slot on the field during the preseason opener, where he made his tremendous touchdown – while wearing teammate Odell Beckham Jr’s customized cleats, because he’d misplaced his own.
The 86-yard punt return was the first time he had done it in a real game since he played for Phoenix College.
The Browns would go on to win the game, 30-10.
Highsmith, who took a chance on Sheehy-Guiseppi four months ago, told CNN that the rookie’s performance during the game was ‘Incredible.’
‘To be out of football as long as he’s been out, and still have that type of speed? That means he’s fast. And now he’s eating three square meals a day, sleeping in his own bed. The sky’s the limit for him,’ Highsmith added.