About 25 years ago, a high school student named Danny Shea roamed the same halls that Palm Harbor University students roam today. When you talk to one of Shea’s good friends, like local business owner Rob Goetz, you get the picture of a confident student-athlete who loved playing sports and excelled doing so.
Sadly, we lost Shea a number of years ago.
In 2000, Shea kicked 10 field goals for a downtrodden 3-7 PHU program that struggled to put up points — unless he was kicking them. He had one helluva foot. He hit a single-season school-record number of kicks that year and coupled with his junior total of three from a year earlier, he held the career school record for the past 24 years, even though sadly, he didn’t know it.
In March 2006, Shea passed away suddenly in his sleep, Goetz told PalmHarborSports.com. Goetz said that nearly 20 of Shea’s buddies jumped on a cruise when they were winding down their college years and they chose to go to Mexico. Within the week after returning, Shea had passed away from a brain aneurysm at age 23.
“He was a great kid, he was a great receiver too, a good basketball player, you name it,” Goetz told PalmHarborSports.com this week. “We played football in our sophomore year. He was incredibly confident, a smart kid who was into politics, he was very into that kind of stuff. He was a good student. His dad was an FBI agent and he came from a really good family. He loved football and sports.
“He was healthy and 23 years old and went to bed and just never woke up.”
The reason we bring all of this up to the people who remember Shea is this: This past Friday night, his school record was surpassed nearly a quarter century later. The young man who did it, current PHU senior Mitchell Stricker, only wishes he could have shared the moment with Shea.
Stricker hit a single-game PHU record four field goals in one game in a close loss at Boca Ciega last Friday, which included a 48-yarder that was Stricker’s career best and No. 2 all-time in school history to Mike Morzenti’s 50-yarder nearly 25 years ago. As mentioned above, Shea hit 13 field goals during his high school career, while Stricker now comes into Friday’s big district game at Steinbrenner with 15. Last Friday, Stricker tied the career record with his 2nd FG, then passed it with his 3rd. He had two as a sophomore, seven as a junior, and has six so far as a senior with three regular-season games remaining.
“Just knowing that (Shea) paved the way, that he was one of the first great players at our school?” Stricker told PalmHarborSports.com. “It would have been nice to have talked to him and contrast what it was like for him then and how it is today. It would have been nice to meet him, for sure.”
Stricker has been aware he was close to this record since last year, but he admitted he had other things on his mind in the Boca Ciega game — especially in the first half when the Hurricanes were struggling a bit.
“I was thinking about it maybe a little bit, but what I couldn’t get out of my head is how tragic it was how I was punting,” Stricker said, in a self-deprecating tone. “I knew I was close but I also knew that we were down. I didn’t want to fail my team. I just wanted to put it in the back of my mind that I might break history.”
Goetz had paid attention locally to what was going on with the PHU team he used to play for, alongside Shea — the star kicker and wide receiver who eventually headed to play for what is today a Division I team in the FCS level: Wagner College in New York. He lettered there as a freshman in 2001.
“We were part of the second year of (PHU) when the school opened,” Goetz said, referring to the opening in 1996 and his and Shea’s first year in 1997-98. “Danny and I were best friends.”
Goetz still resides in the area and owns Paradise Flooring Solutions.
Some think of the 1996 opening of Palm Harbor University HS as being like yesterday, and the younger crowd probably thinks of it as more like 100 years ago. But Shea and Stricker don/donned the same uniform, sweated through big kicks on the same field, and it would have been special if they could have met — Shea being in his early 40s, and Stricker being a late teen.
Regardless, it’s a brotherhood and they’ll always be bound by their common bond at PHU.
