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O’Hara Making Impact Off the Field, Too

by John Fennelly on March 25th, 2010 at 9:12 am

Giants center Shaun O’Hara was in Nintendo’s midtown store yesterday for a video game promotion (Ubisoft’s Just Dance) with Jets center Nick Mangold and Danilo Gallinari of the Knicks. (That’s O’Hara and Mangold posing with the author).

All three seemed to be having fun playing the game and interacting with the media and fans.

O’Hara has always been a favorite of mine, and now that I met him and talked with him at length, he will always remain so. We chatted about topical Giants issues such as the draft and what its like to play eleven seasons in the NFL, but that is not what impressed me most about Shaun.

He generally wanted to be there yesterday. He told me its part of the NFL’s initiative to promote exercise and physical activity for young people (i.e. Play 360). Just Dance for Wii combines dancing, fun and lots of physical activity without having to leave your home.

O’Hara does quite a bit of charity work. In 2009, Shaun and his wife founded H.I.K.E (Helping Increase Knowledge and Education in life-threatening diseases) which focuses raising awareness and funding for diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

Most recently, Shaun established a scholarship fund at his alma mater, Rutgers University. The fund endows a scholarship at the $100,000 level to be granted to a walk-on football player that “has earned a scholarship during his playing career at Rutgers.

O’Hara is not forgetting his roots. He himself was a walk-on at Rutgers who eventually earned a scholarship. Shaun also went undrafted in 2000 and takes pride in the fact.

He is a self-made guy, a conscientious guy, which makes me want to root for him even more.

Thanks to Anthony Quintano of QuintanoMedia for the photo.

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About John Fennelly

Managing Editor of SNY.tv's Giants Football Blog - the ultimate destination for New York Giants' news, opinion and entertainment. View all posts by John Fennelly →
  • JaymanJD

    Did you ask him when he thinks fans and especially the team will honor Tiki Barber as a great giant? Im sick of him being black balled simply cus he spoke his mind. Isn’t that what the fans and the media wants a player who is honest. Tiki seems like a very smart man who knows what he is talking about. The truth hurts. The fact is everything he said about Eli and the coach at the time was true. Eli was not a leader and the coach did need to change his approach. Eli and the coach made these changes and they won a Super Bowl. Tiki was probably the best running back and all around offensive player this team has ever had. He needs to be finally respected for that. Strahan was just as vocal that year as Tiki but is honored WHY because he happened to stay another year and win a championship but before that i remember strahan being thought of has a locker room divider. Respect is due. He played for a while when he was the only offensive weapon of the team and played his butt off. In the washington game he saved the coaches job. Its just kinda wrong to erase someone from the history books kinda like the yankees and Joe torre.

  • http://www.blognyg.com John Fennelly

    I did not ask him about this, because it had no relevance to the meeting.

    You seem to have answered your own question in the first few lines….Tiki spoke his mind…..to the media – a no-no here in Giantsland….apparently you’ve never run an organization. If one of your people did that to you- regardless whether his content is factual or not – you would be miffed as well.

    No one takes anything away from Barber except Barber. He is the one who divorced the Giants. He wanted it this way. The Giants as an organization have not mistreated Barber at all. They cannot control the way the fans react to Barber, either. They don’t want to have a Tiki Barber Day go badly.

    The Giants will honor Barber when the time is right, and right now the time isn’t right

  • JaymanJD

    True, but sports is different than just a simple organization. Barber called out co-workers but he was still very productive meaning he was not actually hurting the product at least not on th field. The point is fans are being stupid and have a short memory simply because we won the championship a year after he left. Thats like discounting Mattingly’s acheivements because they won a year after he retired. Coughlin and Eli are not the owners of the giants, which is the only way your exampe seems to work.

    • http://www.blognyg.com John Fennelly

      What would you like to see the Giants to do here? I’m not sure.

      I don’t think you’ve been to Giants Stadium recently….

      Barber’s image gets booed soundly every time it appears on the video screens at Giants Stadium. They will not bring him back to retire his number or honor him just have him and organization get embarrassed by an unappreciative crowd.

      I understand your point about how Barber’s on-field accomplishments should overshadow his departure, but there are scores of Giant fans that do not.

      I would love to see his number retired. He was great player and he deserves it. But for many Giant fans, he is perceived as a selfish quitter who bailed on them and caused internal strife in the process.

      Sometimes it not how you enter a party that counts, but how you leave….