Bill O'Connor

William Francis "Zeke" O'Connor, Jr. (May 2, 1926 – March 6, 2021) was an American professional football end who played five seasons in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU) in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After retiring, O'Connor went into business and devoted himself to helping Nepalese Sherpas.

O'Connor grew up in a large Catholic family in New York City and went to college at the University of Notre Dame. After starting for Notre Dame's football team as a freshman in 1944, he spent two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II and played for a service team at Naval Station Great Lakes that was coached by Paul Brown. O'Connor returned to Notre Dame in 1946 and graduated in 1947, but he did not play in his senior year because of a knee injury.

O'Connor signed in 1948 with the Buffalo Bills of the AAFC, where he played for one year. He was then traded to the Cleveland Browns, another AAFC team coached by Brown. The Browns won the AAFC championship in 1949, but O'Connor was cut early the next year and played one season for the minor-league Jersey City Giants. He next had a one-year stint with the New York Yanks of the National Football League before his playing career in the CFL with the Toronto Argonauts. A late-game touchdown catch by O'Connor helped the Argonauts win the Grey Cup in 1952.

O'Connor worked for Sears in Canada after his playing career, and served as the color commentator for Grey Cup broadcasts from 1956 to 1981. He became friends with the famed mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and helped establish a foundation in his name to benefit Sherpas in Nepal. On September 24, 2015, O'Connor was the recipient of the Sandy Hawley Community Service Award, awarded by the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario.

Early life and college

O'Connor was born in New York City and grew up in the Bronx, one of the city's five boroughs. He was the son of a police officer and part of a large Catholic family. The team finished the season with an 8–2 win–loss record under coach Edward McKeever, but O'Connor joined a V-12 Navy College Training Program in the middle of the year as World War II raged on. O'Connor played for a U.S. Navy team in a game against Army held in London in late 1944. In 1945, he played for a service team at Naval Station Great Lakes outside of Chicago that was coached by Paul Brown. He caught a touchdown pass that December in a 39–7 win over Notre Dame.

O'Connor returned to Notre Dame in 1946, but coach Frank Leahy demoted him to the second-team midway through the season as punishment for leaving the school's South Bend, Indiana, campus to see a girl. He suffered a knee injury in a practice before the start of the 1947 season that kept him on the bench all year. The Bills lost the AAFC championship game to the Cleveland Browns. O'Connor played in nine games for the Browns, a team coached by Paul Brown, but did not have a reception. O'Connor earned a master's degree from Columbia University while playing in New York.

In 1952, O'Connor began a two-year stint with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL). In O'Connor's first season with the team, the Argonauts finished with a 7–4–1 record and went on to win the Grey Cup, the CFL's championship trophy. O'Connor caught a touchdown pass off of his fingertips late in the championship game from Nobby Wirkowski, sealing the 21–11 win over the Edmonton Eskimos.

Later life

O'Connor stayed in Canada after finishing his football career. He coached football in Toronto and took an entry-level job at Sears, a global department store chain.