Sean Stellato has taken every advantage of his 15 minutes of fame as agent for upstart New York Giants backup quarterback Tommy DeVito. But for longtime ESPN football analyst Todd McShay, the attention paid toward Stellato just means pain.
If McShay and Stellato seem like a bizarre combination, it’s because they are. But the two competed in the high school football playoffs in Massachusetts as teenagers, with Stellato coming out on the winning end.
Star quarterback Stellato led the Salem football team, during a teachers and coaches strike, to a narrow victory over McShay’s squad. McShay and his team then won their next two games and got word as they wrapped up the second victory that Stellato and Salem were about to be eliminated.
“Dreams are back on,” McShay recalled on Monday’s Ryen Russillo Podcast.
But then Stellato threw a game-winning touchdown to send McShay packing and end his high school career with an L.
“15 years later, I get word from somebody that I know who’s writing a book on him,” McShay explained. “And he wants to contact me to do an interview. I tell him to go bleep himself.”
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McShay harbors beef with Stellato to this day.
“Now I’m sitting on my couch a couple weeks ago, Monday Night Football, and I look at this guy and I’m like, ‘holy s***,” McShay told Russillo. “That’s Sean Stellato. He won’t go away. He’s like this rodent that won’t go away in my life.”
Still, McShay is happy Stellato is finding success as an agent, even if it pains him personally to see the man who crushed his dreams all over the news.
“Now I am 46 years old and I’m still feeling anguish toward Sean Stellato, and it’s not his fault,” McShay said.
With DeVito winning games for the Giants, Stellato has made the rounds. Most of us would likely have the same reaction as McShay if our childhood enemy was gladhanding on national television for two weeks.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.