Joe Donnelly works at MortgageIT as loan consultant
By PAULA PARISOT
1/26/2005

A New York mortgage consultant plans to maintain his mortgage career while he plays for an NFL team.

After the Atlanta Falcons cut him at the end of last season, 24 year-old Joe Donnelly believed his football career was behind him. Donnelly, a 2004 Syracuse University graduate and former Orange tight end, said the Falcons did offer to send him to NFL Europe during the off-season, but he declined saying he preferred to just move on to a career in the mortgage business.

Three weeks into his new career during a meeting with a client, Donnelly received a phone call telling him the Buffalo Bills wanted to sign him.

Thinking it was a joke his agent was trying to pull, Donnelly said, he hung up the phone and continued with his meeting. "I had a hard time believing him when he first called.

"My agent had called me before and said the Bengals were looking for a small tight end," the 6-foot 3-inch, 253-pound Donnelly said with a laugh.

But, when the agent called right back to say he wasn't kidding, that the Bills wanted to sign him to the roster, Donnelly said only then did he believe it.

Donnelly has no plans to give up his newfound career in the mortgage business that he enjoys so much.

"I'm still going to work at MortgageIT here in Rochester," Donnelly said of his mortgage loan consultant position. "I'm so new I don't even have my business cards yet, I just give out my cell number. Being a hometown kid is good for the publicity of the business and it's a good start to use for my client list."

"Football is a great opportunity but football is short-lived," Donnelly explained of his decision to stay at MortgageIT, "and Buffalo is only an hour away from my hometown. After football, you still need something to pay the bills."

"Football is something I love, something I enjoy," he added, "but you never know when it will be over."

NY-based MortgageIT says it offers a full spectrum of lending programs and closes more than $5 billion annually as an online lender and with 33 retail branches and wholesale lending offices nationwide.

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