Ray Seals, a standout defensive lineman who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers team that reached Super Bowl XXX, has died, Syracuse.com reported this weekend.
Seals was 59. No cause of death was revealed.
Seals was the rare player who competed in the NFL without playing a down of college football.
He graduated from Henninger High School in Syracuse, N.Y.
He did not attend college so he could help his family financially and played for the semi-pro Syracuse Express before catching the attention of NFL scouts.
Seals enjoyed an eight-year NFL career beginning with the Tampa Buccaneers in 1989.
He joined the Steelers in 1994 and started 27 games over his two seasons in Pittsburgh.
He totaled 151/2 sacks in those two seasons, including a career-high 81/2 in 1995 when the Steelers reached the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1979 season.
When the Steelers lost the AFC championship game to San Diego following the 1994 season, Seals created the “60-Minute Men” T-shirt that became the team’s rallying cry the following year.
He had his only postseason sack in the Super Bowl during the Steelers’ 27-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Seals spent one more season in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers in 1997.
Seals was inducted into the Greater Syracuse Hall of Fame in 2016.
Seals was the cousin of Jonny Gamage, his business partner who died at the hands of police offers in a high-profile October 1995 incident. Gammage died following a traffic stop in Brentwood, and the case received national coverage. Charges of involuntary manslaughter were brought against three of the five officers who were at the traffic stop, but nobody was convicted.
Seals said he played the Super Bowl the following January in honor of his cousin.
