Tommy O'Connell

Tommy O'Connell (born September 26, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois) is a retired American collegiate and Professional Football quarterback who played in five NFL and two American Football League seasons from 1953–1957 and 1960-1961 for 3 different teams. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Class of 1953, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity.

He started for the Cleveland Browns in the 1957 NFL Championship Game while coming off a severely sprained ankle and a hairline fracture of the fibula. He retired from football after the 1957 season to go into coaching, but was lured back to the playing field when the American Football League started play in 1960. He is the father of former professional ice hockey player and general manager Mike O'Connell.