Today, Brian O’Neill is entering his seventh NFL season as a starting offensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings.
But while growing up in Wilmington, O’Neill excelled in numerous sports besides football, including soccer, swimming, lacrosse and basketball, in which he was state high school player of the year as a Salesianum senior with a future NBA player, Donte DiVincenzo, a year behind him.
All of those, he felt, helped build the foundation for his pro football career.
As he offered tips while helping to coach more than 300 kids at Friday’s Titus Sports Academy football camp at Wilmington’s Chase Fieldhouse, O’Neill hoped the benefits would carry over into whatever recreational and athletic endeavors they sought.
“I feel like all the sports leagues I played in in Wilmington,” he said, “at the YMCA, all the different sports that I played and had so many great teammates and coaches, it was such a great experience.
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“We did it all for years. I just remember always being in a sport around here and I had such a positive experience playing and doing something in the summer and being active and engaged.”
That was what he hoped all those kids would draw from Friday’s third annual gathering, which also featured O’Neill’s former Sallies teammate Troy Reeder, the Los Angeles Rams linebacker.
Engaging in offensive line drills with O’Neill certainly gave some attendees a thrill.
“It helps me learn how to actually block better and how to stay in my stance when I’m actually firing out,” said Ayden Young, a rising eighth-grader who plays for the Delaware Wildcats. “It’s very fun moving people, getting pancakes.”
“It’s just fun to experience it and be here with him,” said Cole Houle, who’ll be in seventh grade at Saint Elizabeth.
O’Neill and Reeder each train at Titus when they are back home. After missing several late games last year with a broken bone in his foot, O’Neill was healthy enough to take part in recent Organized Team Activities.
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O’Neill, who has played in 93 NFL games with 89 starts, and wife Bryn (formerly Gorelick), an Archmere graduate also from Wilmington, were married earlier this year and live in Minnesota.
It’ll be a transitional year for the Vikings with the departure of proven quarterback Kirk Cousins. The much-traveled Sam Darnold and Nick Mullens are joined by Jaren Hall and rookie J.J. McCarthy out of national champion Michigan.
“When you play with a guy like Kirk Cousins for six years,” O’Neill said, “he takes a lot off everybody’s plate.”
With a new, less experienced quarterback, he added, “the mindset has to be ‘We need to take some of the things Kirk did off whoever’s plate that is.’ We can point out things in the run game as offensive linemen that maybe Kirk had the responsibility for last year, so I think there’s ways we can help. And obviously we still have crazy playmakers [led by wide receiver Justin Jefferson].”
Reeder is entering his sixth NFL season, having played 83 games and started 31 with the Rams from 2019-21 and last year and the Chargers in 2022. He won a Super Bowl with the Rams after the 2021 season.
“We love doing this thing every year and we’ve had a great turnout,” Reeder said. “I think the kids who are returning year after year are getting better.
“That’s really the goal and hopefully it leads to more kids not only doing this but getting into Titus to train, because it was this aspect of learning the game that pushed us to the next level. And we were doing it from a really young age like these kids.”
Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and our DE Game Day newsletter.
