A defensive tackle from Warwick won four Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers, a fullback from Cranston picked up two with the Oakland Raiders, and a long snapper who played at Brown won a pair with the New York Giants.
A return specialist from Cranston got a ring with the Giants, and a special teams star from Brown earned one with the Steelers.
A former Brown and UMass coach earned a ring as an assistant with the Steelers. The new coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who played his high school football at La Salle Academy, coached in the Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Rams.
But a defensive end from Pawtucket helped win the Super Bowl that changed professional football forever.
So, let’s jog down Memory Lane and replay the exploits of Super Bowl alums who grew up here, or played, or coached college football in the Ocean State.
GERRY PHILBIN
A stalwart on the 1968 New York Jets team that stunned the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III, Gerry Philbin helped prove that the American Football League champion could play with — and beat — the National Football League’s best.
Born in 1941, he grew up in Pawtucket, played football at Tolman High and went on to the University of Buffalo. The Jets chose him in the third round of the AFL Draft. Two days later, the Detroit Lions selected him in the same round of the NFL Draft. Philbin chose the Jets because they “treated me a lot better. . . . They showed me a lot more respect,” he told Jim Gehman of NYJETS.com in 2018.
Quarterback Joe Namath was the brash young star of those Jets. In his fourth season, he had led them to an 11-3 record and victory over the Oakland Raiders in the AFL championship. Tired of being dismissed by the NFL-oriented sports media, Namath guaranteed a New York victory.
Philbin was a fifth-year pro. At 6-foot-2, 245 pounds he was a bit undersized but was a fierce pass rusher thanks to his quickness and technique. Today he would be called an edge rusher. He had 19 sacks in 1968 — the sack became an official NFL statistic in 1972.
The impact of the Jets upset was Philbin’s biggest thrill from Super Bowl III.
“It really meant so much to the players around the league in the AFL because we were really second-class citizens up until the time the Jets won in the Super Bowl,” Philbin told Gehman.
The AFL and NFL merged in 1970, ending the bidding war for talent.
Philbin played 11 pro seasons, nine with the Jets, one with the Philadelphia Eagles. and one with the New York Stars of the World Football League. He was a two-time AFL All-Star and is a member of the AFL’s All-Time team. He was inducted into the Jets Ring of Honor in 2011. He is 83 now and living in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
STEVE FURNESS
He grew up in Warwick and played football at Bishop Hendricken and the University of Rhode Island. He was such a good hammer thrower at the University of Rhode Island that he received an invitation to the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials. But Steve Furness, a fifth-round draft pick, turned it down to attend the Pittsburgh Steelers training camp. The rest is history.
A 6-foot-4, 255-pound tackle, Furness worked his way into the Pittsburgh’s vaunted Steel Curtain defense as a backup to Joe Greene and Ernie Holmes on the 1974 and 1975 championship teams. He replaced Holmes in 1977 and started on the Super Bowl champion teams in 1978 and 1979. An excellent pass rusher, he notched 32 sacks during his eight seasons with the Steelers. He retired after playing the 1980 season with Detroit.
Furness coached the defensive line at Michigan State and for the Indianapolis Colts and the Steelers through the 1993 season. He was inducted into the URI Athletic Hall of Fame in 1987. Sports Illustrated named him one of Rhode Island’s 50 greatest sports figures of the 20th century.
Super Bowl Sunday will mark the 25th anniversary of his death from a heart attack on Feb. 9, 2000. He was 49.
MARK van EEGHEN
A football star at Cranston West and Colgate University, Mark van Eeghen was sitting in a bar when he learned that the Oakland Raiders had taken him in the third round of the 1974 NFL Draft. He started laughing.
Opponents weren’t laughing when van Eeghen carried the ball and blocked blitzing linebackers during eight seasons with the Raiders and two with the New England Patriots. When he retired after the 1983 season, he had rushed for 6,651 yards, caught 174 passes for 1,583 yards and scored 41 touchdowns.
To end the 1976 season he rushed for 73 yards against the Minnesota Vikings in Oakland’s 32-14 romp in Super Bowl XI. Four years later in Super Bowl XV, he was the leading rusher with 75 yards on 18 carries in the Raiders 27-10 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.
RICK MOSER
A fullback at URI in the mid-1970s, Moser got playing time as a running back and on special teams with the Steelers in the 1970s. He was on the Super Bowl team that defeated Dallas, 35-31, in 1978 and the L.A. Rams, 31-19, the following season.
After football, he had a long career as an actor and model.
SEAN MOREY
He did everything for Brown in the late 1990s. Catch passes (251). Score touchdowns (40). Pile up receiving yards (3,850), more than any receiver in NCAA I-AA except Jerry Rice. He also returned punts and kicks. He was the best player in the Ivy League in 1997 and All-Ivy in 1998.
Morey played for New England, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Arizona during his 11-year NFL career and was a standout on special teams. In 2005 he was captain of the Pittsburgh special teams unit when the Steelers beat Seattle, 21-10, in Super Bowl XL.
Morey suffered 20 concussions during his career and in retirement has been a staunch advocate of concussion protocol and treating the symptoms of CTE.
ZAK DeOSSIE
A quarterback at Phillips Andover and an All-Ivy and All-America linebacker at Brown, Zak DeOssie’s ticket to the NFL in addition to his defense was his skill as a long snapper. He handled that duty for most of his 13 seasons with the New York Giants.
Sorry, Patriots fans. The son of former Giants LB Steve DeOssie, Zak was on the field when the Giants upset the Patriots, 17-14, in Super Bowl XLII in 2008 and when they beat the Patriots, 21-17, in Super Bowl XLVI in 2012.
WILL BLACKMON
A high-school All-America at Bishop Hendricken and a fourth-round pick out of Boston College in the 2006 NFL Draft, defensive back and return specialist Will Blackmon played for five teams in the NFL and CFL until retiring in 2018. His Super Bowl moment occurred in 2012 when he helped the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. He had signed late in the season to bolster New York’s injury-riddled secondary.
JAMIE SILVA
A hard-hitting defensive back from East Providence, Jamie Silva was an All-America at Boston College. Undrafted, he signed as a free agent with the Indianapolis Colts in 2008 as a free safety and special teams player. He helped the 2009 Colts to Super Bowl XLIV. They lost to the New Orleans Saints.
Silva suffered a career-ending knee injury in the first preseason game in 2010.
MARK WHIPPLE
A former head coach at New Haven, Brown and the University of Massachusetts, Mark Whipple was the quarterbacks coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers 2005 when they won Super Bowl XL over Seattle.
LIAM COEN
A former La Salle Academy and UMass quarterback, Liam Coen was an assistant coach with the 2018 Los Angeles Rams when they lost Super Bowl LIII to the Patriots, 13-3. He is the new coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars now.
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.
