I’d been told that we once had a professional football player in the family, but I only recently discovered more, through my family history research.
Freddy DeRiggi was a nose guard for the Buffalo Bills in the 1990 season, his one and only year as a pro. Before that, he played for Syracuse University. He is my second cousin, though I don’t remember every actually meeting him.
It is surprisingly hard to find a photograph of a professional football player who was not a big star. So far, the only ones I’ve discovered of him as a pro have copyright watermarks all over them. Clearly I can’t use those. But I did find a 1989 Syracuse University Football Yearbook on eBay, with this head shot.
The Petrini Page 