The Browns won the AAFC championship in 1949, but O'Connor was cut early the next year and played one season for the minor-league Jersey City Giants.
He next had a one-year stint with the New York Yanks of the National Football League before his playing career in the CFL with the Toronto Argonauts.
[4] O'Connor attended Mount Saint Michael Academy, a Catholic school in the Bronx, where he played football and was voted the team's best end in 1942 and 1943.
[3] His large size – he was six feet, four inches tall – made him an attractive prospect for college football programs across the country, and he accepted a scholarship offer from Notre Dame.
[5] The team finished the season with an 8–2 win–loss record under coach Edward McKeever, but O'Connor joined a V-12 Navy College Training Program in the middle of the year as World War II raged on.
[8] O'Connor returned to Notre Dame in 1946, but coach Frank Leahy demoted him to the second-team midway through the season as punishment for leaving the school's South Bend, Indiana, campus to see a girl.
[3] The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League were also interested in signing him, but O'Connor chose to play for the Bills because several Notre Dame alumni – including quarterback George Ratterman – were on the team.
[13] The Browns cut O'Connor before the beginning of the next season, and he played in 1950 for the Jersey City Giants, a minor-league team in the now-defunct American Association.
[15] O'Connor caught a touchdown pass off of his fingertips late in the championship game from Nobby Wirkowski, sealing the 21–11 win over the Edmonton Eskimos.
[9] Later that year, Hillary invited O'Connor and several other Sears executives to visit Nepal and consider charitable contributions for the Sherpa people who helped him climb Everest.
[9] O'Connor suffered from altitude sickness on the trip, but agreed to establish the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation of Canada when he returned to Toronto.