Former Steelers player Ray Seals, who made it to the NFL despite skipping college, dead at 59

His cause of death was not immediately released.

Seals' high school coach, Bob Campese, remembered the former defensive lineman as a "happy-go-lucky" person.

Seals started playing for the semipro Syracuse Express in 1987.

Ray Perkins, who coached at Alabama before leaving to accept the head coaching job with the Buccaneers, is largely credited with giving Seals a chance to play in the NFL.

"We were all behind him. We were rooting for him like you couldn't believe, to have that opportunity to make it," Seals' former Express teammate, Garry Acchione, said. "I never had a doubt in my mind that he was good enough to play in the NFL. I mean, we all knew it. It's just, 'OK, how do you get him there? How does he get the opportunity?' 

"Because, back then, I mean, he didn't come out of college. You're not going to just walk onto a pro team and make it."

Seals, who played for the Steelers from 1994-95, recorded a sack in the Super Bowl at the end of the 1995 season.