Now, parents, teach your children well. Encourage them with your faith and leadership. Remember that you are the windows through which your children see this world. Take notice of yourself and the things that you do in hopes that your example will stir their hearts and souls.
To every young athlete within the sound of my voice, it takes courage to dream your dream. Don’t let them sit in the locker room. Take a leap of faith. Listen to your parents and respect your elders. Learn from your successes and your losses. Defeat is possible and is a challenge to do better next time. Be satisfied you gave the game everything that you had and remember this: Don’t be afraid to travel the road less traveled because Larry Rayfield Wright did, and you can, too.
Fred Dean
San Diego Chargers and San Francisco 49ers
Defensive End
Class of 2008
After seven seasons in San Diego, Dean helped San Francisco win two Super Bowls, posting a career-best seventeen sacks in 1983.
Presented by 49ers Owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr.
While it cannot be said that Fred Dean’s greatness as an NFL player began when he came to the 49ers in 1981, I can say, as the owner of the team, that the greatness of the 49ers began with Fred Dean’s arrival in San Francisco.
The 49ers won just eight games in Bill Walsh’s first two seasons as our head coach. But going into 1981, there was a fresh sense of hope. On offense, our young quarterback Joe Montana had taken charge. On defense, a spectacular rookie, Ronnie Lott, anchored our secondary. But we had yet to get the quality wins that give a team confidence to believe that it can be a champion. And we lacked that explosive pass-rusher who could blow up offenses in those critical moments that determine the outcome of games.
Enter Fred Dean. When Bill Walsh learned that the Chargers were willing to trade Fred, he came to me like a kid with his eye on the niftiest possible Christmas present. You see, Bill had something different in mind for Fred, something downright revolutionary.
He would take this every-down Pro Bowl defensive end and turn him into a dynamic situational pass-rusher. Nothing like this has ever been done before. “Wait until you see what we do with Fred tomorrow,” Bill told me the night before Fred’s first game with us. Tomorrow we were playing the dominant Dallas Cowboys at home.
The funny thing was while Bill was telling me how significant Fred would be against Dallas, in that wonderful manipulative way of his, he put out the word that Fred would be a nonfactor. In fact, he told John Madden, who was doing the game, that Fred wouldn’t play much, if at all. Oh, did he play. He sacked Danny White three times.
And we won 45–14.
Two weeks later, we played the NFC West powerhouse Rams at home. Fred sacked Pat Haden five times, and we also won that game. Now you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that something different was going on down on that field with Fred Dean in a 49er uniform. We finished the season 13–3. We beat the Cowboys in the NFC championship game.
And we went on to win our first Super Bowl. The amazing thing is Fred was this destructive force on sheer quickness, technique, and pure talent. He didn’t even lift weights. Fred Dean was truly the natural. You know, Fred never said much. He was a quiet giant. But when the defense needed him to make a big play, we looked to Fred, and he never let us down. Never. No matter what the situation was.
Every player on our second Super Bowl team recognizes that he gave us the shot in the arm we needed to win that championship. Fred was the leader in the way it counted most, with his play. The National Football League has been the great love of my professional life. I was blessed to have had the magnificent good fortune to be represented by an organization of players, coaches, and executives that won five Super Bowls. We wouldn’t have won five if we hadn’t won the first two. I assure you we would not have won the first two if it weren’t for Fred Dean.
We look back today, and it comes time to put Fred Dean’s spectacular career in historical perspective. First off, he was a pioneer. He was the forefather of the great hybrid jet pass-rushers. He led the way for players like Derrick Thomas, our own Charles Haley, and the great Andre Tippett, who is being inducted today with Fred. Also, this era’s Dwight Freeney and Jason Taylor.
Most importantly, Fred now joins my very dear friend Reggie White and Deacon Jones and Lawrence Taylor on that Mount Rushmore of pass-rushers who have earned immortality on this, our sport’s sacred ground.
Fred Dean
God puts people in your life that have an impact on it, both spiritually and physically. For me, Mom and Dad were two of those people. See, I was a little boy, I was born in Arcadia, Louisiana, but I grew up in Ruston, Louisiana—a time during the change in our country.
Lincoln High School, an all-black school, was my first attendance. And, you know, I was small in size. And being small in size, I know that there are a lot of you got bullies around you sometimes. And they want to take advantage of a situation. But I’m here to tell you now, even though I was small, I got into a few incidents. And one day, a coach walked up to me. And his name happened to be Coach Robert Smith. And he said to me, “Why don’t you take some of that energy to the field?” And I proceeded to take the energy to the field, as he had asked.
Later I went to Louisiana Tech, and at Louisiana Tech, Coach Lam-bright allowed me to have a twinkle in my eye at that time. And I want to set the record straight, finally. I was a defensive end then, and I wanted to be a defensive end now. So I wasn’t a linebacker then—I was a defensive end. You know, when you get used to getting down in the dirt, getting your clothes dirty and wallowing a little bit, it makes everything come out right when you can stand up out of the mud or sod and feel comfortable. So, I said to myself, “Hmm, I like the dirt. And if I can beat somebody in this dirt, it’s going to be a good thing.” And another thing that I knew is that when you tried to talk about me, when I was coming up, I was small in size, but I tell you dirt can’t talk about dirt.
So we need to understand that out of all of that I ended up with the San Francisco 49ers. And to me, that was a dream come true. I could consider it being born by the Chargers but having a renewal of life with the 49ers. And being with the 49ers, I found that on the other side of that bridge, on the other side was my rainbow, the true ending of a rainbow. Not financially, but with all the people there. You see, my richness came from my father, who is in heaven, and it was with you all. I loved it all. I loved the game of football.
I said to myself, I didn’t dream about playing football. I didn’t dream about being in the Hall of Fame. But I always heard, and we always talked, about the great vintage players that were in the Hall. And it was really an eye-opening thing for me. But yet and still, I didn’t plan it. You see, what I found is, sometimes in our lives we can sit down and write out our aims and goals, but whether we know it or not, God already has the aim and goal set for you. And in that direction is the direction in which you will end up going.
You probably ask me why do I say that and how do I know? It’s because I got a connection with the Father. You see, I look at myself as being the prodigal son. I went astray for a while because Mom and Dad always raised us up to love and appreciate the things that we had and the people surrounding us. I always wondered why, when I’d go out and pick a whole thing of peas and shell them, Mom and Dad would give half of them away. I’d kind of be upset. But it was a lesson to be learned. It was the giving, because I learned about the rich man who didn’t make it.
My father, he was with my brother one day—and you know this is the way he is—and he was going down the road, and he was walking off the curb, and he fell. You see, my father is eighty-eight years old. And being that age, you know, you kind of get a little frail. My father, he fell, and he said we sat there and I said, “Are you all right, Father?” He said yes. I asked him, “Are you hurt?” He said no. But he said, “You know what? When I fell, I fell so hard it shook like thunder.” And you know I couldn’t help but think about the things he used to say to me, th
e old clichés. It’s like, boy, if you ever want to make it on the road to success, get off that dirt road to failure. And my father, with that pavement of success, I feel that I finally got there, Dad.
Darrell Green
Washington Redskins Cornerback
Class of 2008
Nicknamed the “Ageless Wonder,” Green spent a record twenty seasons in Washington, going to seven Pro Bowls and winning two Super Bowls.
Deacon Jones said I would cry. You bet your life I’m going to cry.
A lot of people have traveled this with me. It’s been a long time. The most special of them all is my parents. Both of my parents are deceased. They’re the most special of them all, because I’m not here if they weren’t here first. Everybody said, “You’re too little, you can’t do it.” My dad, Leonard Green Sr., said, “Boy, you can run that ball.”
They said no. And he said go. The most encouragement you can ever get in life is when a dad encourages his son. Encourage your son, that’s what he did for us. I’d sure like to have a drumroll right now because I’m going to talk about the greatest mother in the world.
Am I going to cry? You gotta be kidding me. You don’t know my momma and daddy. Gloria Green, baby, Gloria Green. She told me a story one day. I was about ten years old. She said, “You know, the day you were born, I was in the room there, and they had me up on these things and nothing was happening. You weren’t doing anything, and everybody left out of the room, maybe twenty, thirty minutes.” And all of a sudden she heard a scream. Somebody said, “Catch that baby!” She said, “You were about to hit the ground.”
When I got into football, she said, “Don’t let them big boys hurt you now.” My parents were the best. They were the best.
CHAPTER 2
FAMILY
COACHES COME AND GO, AS DO TEAMMATES. OFTEN THEY change from one season to the next. But family is teammates for life.
Family is the support system that never leaves. It is there in the beginning and at the end. It is there for the wins and the losses. It is there for the ups and the downs.
As strong as this group of Hall of Famers is, so many draw their strength from a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or a child. Their words and support often mean more than any coach’s or teammate’s. They provide the inspiration that even Hall of Famers need.
Hall of Famers often provide for their families, but they know it also goes the other way. Family never boos. Family never leaves a game early. Family is always there.
Michael Irvin
Dallas Cowboys Wide Receiver
Class of 2007
Irvin caught 750 passes for 11,904 yards and sixty-five touchdowns. He had an NFL record eleven 100-yard receiving games in 1995.
Presented by Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones
A championship team can have a catalyst. They can have a spark, someone that can put a fire in another person’s heart. The Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s were champions. They were in three Super Bowls and won them in four years’ time. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you tonight that the heartbeat, the heart and the soul of those championship teams, was Michael Irvin.
Michael came to Dallas with a self-proclaimed nickname, “The Playmaker.” Now, at first many people didn’t understand why this young guy would brand himself with such a bold nickname. But we began to figure it out real, real soon.
When it was third and long, opposition coaches knew exactly where Troy Aikman was throwing the ball. The defensive backs knew exactly where Aikman was going with the ball. Everybody in the stadium knew where the ball was going, but they couldn’t stop it.
Troy Aikman often said the greatest thing about Michael Irvin is you could throw him the ball when he was covered, or you could throw him the ball when he was open, and the results were usually the same almost all the time. It was a completion, and most of the time it was for a first down.
Now, when you’ve got a quarterback that has that kind of confidence in your receiver, you can have some offense. That’s how you earn the name “Playmaker,” and that’s how you keep it.
His performance always improved as the level of competition increased. He routinely had his best games against [cornerbacks] Deion Sanders, Darrell Green, Rod Woodson, Aeneas Williams. And his numbers increased as that long season went along and we got closer to the playoffs. From the regular season to the playoffs, from the playoffs to the Super Bowl, that was Michael Irvin’s best days.
At the pinnacle of his career in 1995, he had eleven 100-yard receiving games, a mark that is still an NFL record today. But the Dallas Cowboys’ offenses really weren’t designed for the receiver to get big stats. They really weren’t designed for Troy, the quarterback, to really rack ’em up in statistics.
The teams were designed to win championships, and what that meant was take what the defense gave you. Now, with the backdrop of all of that, the fact that one team could produce the NFL’s greatest all-time rushing leader in Emmitt Smith, the fact that last year the first opportunity that he had a chance to be honored with these men, Troy Aikman came into the NFL Hall of Fame.
And the fact tonight that Michael Irvin is going to go in the Hall of Fame, it just shows you the team concept and shows you the balance that was there. The player that epitomized it more than anyone on the team, the player that taught it, the player that embellished it, that was Michael Irvin and his leadership.
You can’t get to Canton, Ohio, without exceptional talent. But athletic ability alone was only a part of Michael’s gifts. His hard work is legendary. In two days, the grind of all of it, you’d be on the field in the morning and in the afternoon, and someone would look around and ask, “Where is Michael?” He’d be down on the field with pads on in the hot sun, getting some more in.
His passion, his competitiveness were really possibly his greatest gifts. He shared them with his teammates on a daily basis. He practiced every day with the determination of a rookie that was hanging by a thread to make the team, and that’s the way this great player approached it.
Aikman told me yesterday that Michael would never let the team have a bad practice. If there was a lull, he would create something between the defense and the offense. He’d get some stuff going just so that team could practice and get better for what they had to face Sunday.
Maybe that’s the quality that separates the good players from the great players, the Hall-of-Fame players. Or maybe it’s just the natural instinct of a man who had sixteen brothers and sisters, and knew that nothing in life was going to be given to him.
In the locker room, he was a teammate first, a competitor second, and a superstar third. His leadership style not only transcended the cliques in the locker room but his leadership style on our team and our organization went from the locker room and the equipment room all the way to the boardroom. It permeated it.
I don’t know that we’ll see again a professional football player with a combination of his strength and his skills as an athlete on the field and his unbelievable people skills. Smart, resourceful, communicative, charm, the kind of charisma and tremendous will with the strength to get the respect of the team. He had his faults—but in a unique way that only Michael Irvin could pull off.
His fallibility by the people who followed him—by the people who were looking at him—his fallibility gave them strength because they knew, too, how fallible they were, and they wanted to see somebody that could go down and come up stronger and try to get better when they got on their feet. That’s what Michael Irvin brought to the Dallas Cowboys and his locker room.
He learned his game from his older brothers in Fort Lauderdale. He had a great high school he played for, St. Thomas High School. He became a star at the University of Miami, drafted by Gil Brandt and Tex Schramm. He was nurtured by Coach Tom Landry. He was coached in college and embellished when he got to pro football by one of the greatest coaches, Jimmy Johnson.
He spent his entire career in the loving embrace of the Dallas Cowboys. His journey reaches a destination tonight
here in Canton, and it was a longer journey than most, with a lot of bumps in the road. He got knocked down for the last time at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. But tonight he’ll get up again and he’ll take his place among the immortals of this great game.
Michael Irvin, he’s a friend. If you’re in my shoes, you feel like he’s a son. He’s an inspirational and natural born leader. He’s a loving father and husband. He’s a wonderful brother and son. He’s a Dallas Cowboy. And tonight, forever more, he’s a member of the professional football Hall of Fame.
Michael Irvin
Jerry, those were kind words, thank you. You know, when I first met Jerry he had just purchased the Dallas Cowboys. He had a bit of a concerned look on his face. I said to him, I said, “We will have fun and we will win Super Bowls.” You see, I knew Jerry had put all he had into purchasing the Cowboys. That’s the way I see Jerry. He’s a man that’s willing to give all he has, and all he wants is to bring the Cowboy family Super Bowls.
Jerry, I appreciate your commitment to family, the Dallas Cowboy family and your own family. He has a beautiful wife, Gene. I tell her this. I just love her to death. Her spirit exudes beauty. Her mannerisms exude class. She’s one of a kind. Gene, I do love you.
These [Hall-of-Fame] gentlemen behind me, these men, they inspired me to become the player that I became. As I spent this week with these gentlemen that I’ve admired growing up, I kept thinking about how gifted they are. Man, they’re gifted to run and cut, gifted to throw and catch, gifted to run through blocks and make great tackles.
And then I met their wives and their families, and I realized that it’s not only about the gift God gave us but equally important is the help that God gave us. It’s the people that God put in place to support us on our journey. So I will try to put the credit in the right place tonight and share with you my help and my journey.
The Class of Football Page 5