Longtime Steelers scout
Sept. 4, 1942 - April 11, 2017
Tom Modrak, one of the giants among NFL personnel scouts and executives, died Tuesday at his home along the beach in St. Augustine, Fla., where he lived out the pursuit of his career and family life.
Mr. Modrak, 74 and a Pittsburgh native, began his long career as a scout with the Steelers in the 1970s. He was executive director of the BLESTO scouting combine at the time of his death from a rare neurological disease that was diagnosed in December.
The Steelers hired him as a full-time scout in 1978 after he worked initially for BLESTO under Jack Butler, a Pro Football Hall of Fame Steelers player.
He became general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1998, reviving that franchise into a contender, and was vice president of college scouting for the Buffalo Bills for 10 years until 2011. He was hired to run BLESTO in 2012.
“Tom Modrak was an integral part of our personnel team for more than 20 years,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “He then came back to BLESTO in recent years and continued to make important contributions. He helped the Steelers organization in many different ways throughout his career, all of which are greatly appreciated.”
Tom Donahoe worked alongside Mr. Modrak with the Steelers in the 1980s and 1990s, and later, as president of the Buffalo Bills, he hired him as his assistant general manager.
“When I came to the Steelers, really from high school, Tom helped me to grow and to learn to be a professional scout,” Mr. Donahoe said. “Later on, I was able to bring him to Buffalo after the Eagles let him go. He was a great resource for me up there as well.
“He had a really good relationship with [Bills owner and Hall of Famer] Ralph Wilson and enjoyed that. It was good to have him around, someone you could respect and trust, and we needed a lot of help.”
Former Steelers personnel boss Art Rooney Jr. hired Modrak to review film of NFL players in the summer in the early 1970s before he joined BLESTO as a scout. The Steelers then hired him as a full-time scout, a position he worked in for 20 years.
“Tom was very dependable; he was never a BS-er,” Mr. Rooney Jr. said. “One of the most dangerous scouts you can get is a guy who doesn’t know poo but can write well and knows vocabulary. Tom was legitimate in everything. On top of it all, he was a very nice and loyal person.”
After 20 years with the Steelers, Mr. Modrak was hired by Philadelphia as general manager in 1998. At the time, the Eagles were perennial losers and had little direction. Mr. Modrak helped hire Andy Reid as their coach in 1999 and drafted quarterback Donovan McNabb the same year over the loud objections of many Eagles fans, who wanted Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams.
Mr. Reid and Mr. McNabb helped lead the Eagles to five straight playoff seasons and four straight appearances in the NFC championship game, capped by their close Super Bowl loss to New England in the 2004 season.
Although Mr. Modrak brought in the coach and many of the players who fueled that success in Philadelphia, he was not around to experience most of it. He lost a power grab by Mr. Reid, and the Eagles fired him after going 11-5 in 2000, their first winning season in four years.
“Modrak and I got let go and they went to four straight NFC championship games with our team,” said Mike McCartney, one of Mr. Modrak’s assistants in the front office with the Eagles. “I think 51 of the 53 guys on that team that made the playoffs the next year were our guys.”
Mr. McCartney, now a football player agent for Priority Sports who remained close friends with Mr. Modrak through the years, also gave credit to his old boss for teaching him the ropes as a scout. A prominent player was cut by another team while they worked for the Eagles and Mr. McCartney mentioned to Mr. Modrak that they should take a look at him.
“The moment I brought his name up, Tom knew we weren’t going to sign him, but we spent an hour talking it through, every angle,” Mr. McCartney said. “By the end, I said we can’t do that, we have to move on. Instead of just saying no right away, Tom took an hour to discuss it. I grew as an evaluator that day.”
Mr. Modrak was class president at Carrick High School and graduated in 1965 from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he played football. He earned a master’s degree from West Virginia in 1972. He was inducted into the IUP Athletics and Western Pennsylvania Sports halls of fame. Mr. Modrak, who served two years in the Army, was an assistant college football coach at West Point, Utah and Harvard and was an administrator at Penn StateMcKeesport before he joined the pros as a scout.
The family will hold a memorial celebration of his life at their home in St. Augustine in late May, a day or so after both the BLESTO and National scouting combines hold their spring meetings in Florida.
“He was just the ultimate people person,” Mr. McCartney said.
“Not everyone cares about people in this business; Tom cared about everyone around him. That’s why so many people are hurting today. He was truly beloved.”
Mr. Modrak is survived by his wife of 50 years, Sandy, and daughters Stephanie Dougherty and Erin Koontz, all of St. Augustine.