Packers sign LuHi's Messiah Swinson
Tight end Messiah Swinson of Arizona State. Credit: Getty Images
Messiah Swinson used to play tight end and defensive end for Long Island Lutheran. Now this Bay Shore native and son of a former NFL player is bound for the Green Bay Packers.
Swinson, who played tight end for Arizona State, is joining the Packers as an undrafted free agent, according to Chris Reno, his coach at LuHi. Reno received a call from Swinson on Saturday night with the news that he was signing.
Reno wrote in a message to Newsday that Swinson is “excited for his opportunity.”
That was clear later in the day on X when Swinson posted a hashtag next to “GoPackGo” and then came the “G” for Green Bay’s logo. Then came nine cheese wedge emojis under that line.
Swinson, from LuHi’s Class of 2018, began his college career at Missouri before transferring to Arizona State. The redshirt senior, listed at 6-8 and 260 pounds, caught six passes for 48 yards last season.
His dad, the late Corey Swinson, also was from Bay Shore and played football and basketball at Bay Shore High.
He was drafted as a defensive tackle in the seventh round by the Miami Dolphins out of Hampton in 1995, but he was waived during the preseason and spent that season, his lone one in the NFL, with the then-St. Louis Rams, both on the practice squad and the active roster.
He later became the security director for the Bay Shore school district and then the Copiague district as well as a youth football coach in Bay Shore. He died from heart failure in 2013 at the age of 43, when Messiah was 13. The Fifth Avenue overpass above Sunrise Highway in Bay Shore was named after the elder Swinson the following year.
“[Messiah] is an outstanding outstanding person as was his father,” Reno wrote.
