The Life And Career Of Orlando Pace (Story)
Pace did not merely keep edge rushers at bay. He flattened them with his pancake style of blocking dating back to his college days with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Pace was so fast that he could keep up with tight ends and running backs during his heyday.
Pace was a behemoth who protected quarterback Kurt Warner’s blind side. He also opened up holes for running back Marshall Faulk.
With Pace anchoring the offensive line of St. Louis’ “Greatest Show on Turf,” the Rams won their first Super Bowl title at the end of their memorable 1999 NFL season.
Pace went on to earn seven straight Pro Bowl berths during his heyday in St. Louis. Little wonder he is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.
This is Orlando Pace’s remarkable football journey.
Early Life
Orlando Lamar Pace was born in Sandusky OH on November 4, 1975.
Pace’s mother Joyce Pace-Caffey worked two jobs to provide for him and his sister, Katrina.
Both their mother and maternal grandmother, Idella Pace, worked at the Dixon-Ticonderoga plant that manufactured pencils. The two women raised the two children by themselves.
Orlando first played football with his friends when he was seven years old at Sunnyside Park. He progressed to tackle football three years later.
Joyce admitted to Sports Illustrated’s Tim Layden in the fall of 1996 that she had reservations about letting her only son play football because of the game’s violent nature.
Fortunately, she eventually relented. She thought getting her only son into sports would keep him on the right path. Sports also picked up the slack for the missing father figure in young Orlando’s life.
Before long, Orlando Pace would become one of the greatest offensive tackles in pro football history.
Pace’s life changed dramatically when he was 13 years old in 1988. He participated in a basketball tournament in Canton, OH that year.
He toured the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the thought of getting inducted someday crossed his mind, per his 2016 enshrinement speech.
Pace attended Sandusky High School in his hometown. He played for Sandusky Blue Streaks head football coach Larry Cook.
When Pace first took the high school football field in ninth grade, one of Cook’s assistants, Bill Sarter, told him that if he played above expectations he could choose a college in four years’ time.
Unknown to Sarter, those words fueled Pace’s desire to excel on the gridiron. Pace even paid tribute to Sarter, Cook, and offensive line coach Tony Munafo in his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement speech in 2016.
Pace was not your ordinary high school offensive lineman. He wasn’t just huge. He was also one of the fastest and most agile linemen in the Buckeye State.
As a senior, Pace showed everyone he was a cut above the rest.
In a game against the Vermillion Sailors for the 1993 league championship, Pace left his left tackle spot and ran in front of Blue Streaks running back LeAndre Moore through a running lane on the right side of the offensive line.
Pace never broke stride for the next 55 yards. Next thing he knew, Moore trailed him by a few seconds into the end zone.
Pace also dominated on the basketball court during his high school days.
Pace scored on a last-second shot in the league championship game against Lorain Admiral King High in his senior year.
Pace’s Sandusky teammates celebrated prematurely and failed to defend on the other end of the court.
Fortunately, Pace played transition defense and blocked an opponent’s jump shot just as the final buzzer went off. Bedlam ensued.
Pace was a level-headed player on the basketball court for the most part. Sandusky head basketball coach John Schlessman recalled just one instance in three years when Pace lost his cool.
It happened when an opposing player challenged Pace on the hardwood. Pace shoved him so hard that he almost went through a bass drum that was placed along the sidelines.
Pace gave credit to his hoops background for making him a better offensive lineman on the gridiron.
As Pace’s high school athletics career wound down, he became a Parade Magazine All-American as a member of Sandusky High’s offensive line.
Pace, who played on both sides of the ball, earned USA TODAY All-American honors as a defensive lineman. He also earned All-Ohio Second-Team honors in 1992.
Orlando Pace would ultimately remain in-state and settle into the left tackle position with John Cooper’s Ohio State Buckeyes. Pace eventually became one of the greatest tackles in the college and professional ranks.
College Days with the Ohio State Buckeyes
The Ohio State Buckeyes
Orlando Pace attended Ohio State University from 1994 to 1996. He majored in business.
Pace literally made a huge impression on his teammate, sophomore defensive back Shawn Springs.
Springs was in awe of the gargantuan Pace, who stood 6′ 7″ and weighed more than 300 pounds.
Archie Griffin, the Ohio State running back who won the Heisman Trophy in 1974 and 1975, was impressed with Pace’s mobility. The first time Griffin saw Pace on the football field, he thought he ran around like a running back or tight end.
Buckeyes quarterback Stanley Jackson witnessed Pace’s supreme conditioning. While the other offensive linemen could not keep up with their teammates in their 2.5-mile run, Pace was right on their heels.
Not only that, but Pace, who played basketball in high school, showed up his teammates on the hard court.
Jackson and several of the Buckeyes played hoops during their breaks in summer football practice. Pace was a baller in every sense of the word.
“He could run the floor like anybody,” Jackson told ESPN’s Alex Scarborough in the summer of 2021 .”He had a soft touch around the rim. And if you weren’t careful, he would dunk on you.”
Springs dissuaded Pace from taking shots. The former thought Pace should grab rebounds since he was a big man.
Pace would have none of it. He did a bit of everything – score, rebound, block shots, and rebound with the agility of an NBA forward.
Buckeyes center Juan Porter even thought Pace was a thicker version of the Orlando Magic’s Shaquille O’Neal back in the day.
Ohio State defensive ends coach Bill Conley marveled at Pace’s stamina. He swore the big man never showed signs of fatigue.
Buckeyes head football coach John Cooper even used Pace as a threat during practice.
Whenever the team did not meet his expectations, he scared them by making them run around Pace instead of the gridiron.
Pace’s strength was also something to behold. Buckeyes strength coach Dave Kennedy once dared him to do twenty reps of 400-pound hang cleans without straps.
Pace nonchalantly did thirty reps and then winked at Kennedy.
Two-time Big Ten Defensive Lineman of the Year Mike Vrabel could not beat Pace in their one-on-one pass rush scrimmages. Pace always outmuscled Vrabel, who finished his four-year college football career as the program’s career leader in sacks.
“Vrabel is a JV, f—ing high school football player compared to this dude,” Springs told Scarborough in August 2021.
Pace’s college football career coincided with Korey Stringer’s – a Consensus All-American offensive tackle in 1994. Pace was a true freshman in Stringer’s junior season.
Stringer went on to become a Pro Bowl tackle for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. Sadly, he passed away due to organ failure stemming from heat stroke in the summer of 2001.
When Orlando Pace entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016, he revealed Korey Stringer was one of the reasons he wanted to become an Ohio State Buckeye.
“He was my football role model,” Pace said in his enshrinement speech. “As a freshman, I wanted to play the game the way Korey played the game. I was so fortunate to have him in my life.”
Buckeyes head football coach John Cooper named Pace one of his starting offensive linemen in 1994.
Pace went on to start 33 consecutive games for Ohio State until the end of his junior season in 1996.
Pace did remarkable things on the college gridiron. He was one of the few offensive linemen who pursued safeties and employed a one-arm blocking technique.
Pace did not merely block the opposition. His pancake style of blocking ensured the defender lay on the gridiron for several seconds.
Orlando Pace was an immovable force on the Buckeyes’ offensive line in his last two seasons in Columbus, OH. He did not surrender a single sack from 1995 to 1996.
Not only that, but Pace helped Ohio State running back Eddie George rack up 1,927 yards and 24 touchdowns on the ground and eventually win the 1995 Heisman Trophy.
Consequently, Pace won the Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year and Lombardi Award during that memorable two-year time frame. Pace also became a Unanimous All-American offensive lineman as a sophomore and junior.
Pace concluded his junior season at Ohio State in 1996 in strong fashion. He earned Big Ten MVP and Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year honors.
Pace also won the 1996 Outland Trophy as the best offensive lineman in the country. He also earned the 1996 UPI Lineman of the Year award.
After losing in the Citrus Bowl for two consecutive years from 1994 to 1995, the Buckeyes won eleven games in the 1996 NCAA season and beat the Arizona State Sun Devils in the 1996 Rose Bowl, 20-17.
Pace never forgot his Sandusky roots when his star rose in the NCAA football ranks.
Larry Cook, Pace’s head football coach with the Sandusky Blu
e Streaks, told The Baltimore Sun that Pace regularly read to children in the third and fourth grades when he played for the Buckeyes.
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