After an injury to the team's starting quarterback in his first game, Shield took over the position and did not relinquish it for the rest of his college career.
In baseball, he had a career .400 batting average and helped lead the team to two consecutive appearances in the state championship game, winning in 1978.
[2] Shield attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he played quarterback for their football team.
During his first college football game at Trinity, the team's starting quarterback was injured and Shield replaced him.
[3] During the 1985 preseason, he battled Scott Brunner and Randy Wright for the back-up quarterback position behind Lynn Dickey.
[4][5] After Brunner was traded, Shield made the team as the third-string quarterback and suited up, but did not play, in the Packers' season opener against the New England Patriots.
[9] According to the Brattleboro Reformer, Shield was the first person from Vermont to be drafted into the NFL and then make a team's roster.