Coach Ratzlaff asked me to be his manager, and at first I turned him down because I wanted to be a football hero, a high school standout, and I didn’t accept. But after talking to Coach Ratzlaff a couple of days, I saw the picture he wanted to give me. He was giving me the opportunity to get another view of the game of football and once I saw this, I accepted his offer to be comanager of the 1954 Kingsburg High School junior varsity football team.
Coach Ratzlaff explained to me that I could be just as important to this team by being there and showing my leadership and doing all things that managers do. Within the scope of that year, through this small window of opportunity presented by coach, I really learned how to love the game of football.
Being away from the game of football for one year, I came back with a passion as a sophomore. I came back to make up for all the time I lost by missing that one year, and I decided at that particular time that I would not be denied no matter what the odds.
For sure, throughout my career, I’ve been confronted with many situations that it didn’t look like I could fight my way through. But that first year gave me an opportunity to look at football and decide why I really wanted to play it, and I decided I was going to play because I loved it. I loved it with a passion. And that’s the way I approached the rest of my career.
My presenter, Rafer Johnson [a gold medalist in the 1960 Olympics in Rome], is in fact my hero, and that is an amazing thing in itself. Most young men growing up usually have a hero in another town, another city, another country, and they will write to this individual, receive an autographed photo, and then tack that photo up on the wall and worship that photo. No such problem for me.
I had a brother living with me on a day-to-day basis that I was able to talk to, ask the pertinent questions, get the pertinent feedback, and get corrected in my direction if needed. I must say I must give my brother Rafer credit for everything that I have accomplished in the field of athletics. And I just wish we could split this trophy right down the middle because he surely deserves half of it.
Tommy McDonald
Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys,
Los Angeles Rams, Atlanta Falcons, and
Cleveland Browns Wide Receiver
Class of 1998
McDonald caught 495 passes for 8,410 yards and eighty-four touchdowns.
Presented by NFL Films Writer/Producer Ray Didinger
Tommy McDonald is here today for one reason. He followed his heart. He had a passion for the game of football and a desire to be the best and he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way. That’s why he is here today. Not because it was easy. Because for Tommy, it never was. Not because it was destiny, because then it wouldn’t have taken this long. Tommy is here because he refused to listen to all the people who told him it was impossible. The high school and college coaches who told him he was too small, the pro teams that ignored him in the 1957 draft. They didn’t realize that inside that jackrabbit body beat the heart of a lion.
Tommy McDonald was a great football player. But he’s much more than that. He’s an inspiration to every young person who’s ever been told he wasn’t big enough or fast enough or good enough. He’s proof that the greatest strength is still the strength of the human will. He’s proof that you don’t have to stand tall to stand for everything that’s good in life as well as in athletics. Tommy was five-foot-nine and 172 pounds when he played in the National Football League. Today, he becomes the smallest player enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And that makes his accomplishments all the more remarkable.
You had to see him play to know how special he was. If I had one wish for the NFL today, in this era of billion-dollar TV deals and million-dollar contracts, it would be that more players played the game the way Tommy McDonald played it. If they gave as much, cared as much, and loved it as much as he did, we’d all have a lot more fun. Tommy just didn’t play the game, he embraced it. He played the game the way we played it as kids at recess, like he was afraid that any second the bell would ring and he’d have to go back to class.
He was the last player in the league not to wear a face mask. He had his jaw broken in the 1959 league opener but he played the next week with his jaw wired shut and he still scored four touchdowns to beat the New York Giants. That was Tommy McDonald.
He was the smallest man on the field yet, in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, there wasn’t a better receiver in all of football. That’s not just my opinion. Norm Van Brocklin himself said it. And if the “Dutchman” were here today to see Tommy join him in the Hall of Fame, I’m sure he’d say, “It’s about time.”
Tommy McDonald
Oh boy! God almighty, I feel so good—so good. Can you hear an amen back there? Yeah, you got that, baby. Move over Ronald McDonald. There’s another McDonald in Canton, and we’re both going to sell hamburgers—Big Macs and Little Macs.
Do I look excited or do I seem a little like I’ve won the lottery or the jackpot? Yes! I’m in! I’m going into the Hall of Fame! Yes!
My mom isn’t here, she’s eighty-eight years old. She’s in a wheelchair and Mom, I want you and Dad to know that I wish every kid in the United States would have had you as a pop and mom. You gave the love, the support, and everything that I needed in life. You made my brother and myself your whole life. My dad, he died in ’94, but he’s standing right here. In fact, Ray Nitschke’s standing here also. Can you see him? Number 66! Yeah, right there!
Thank you, Canton. I love it!
Jack Youngblood
Los Angeles Rams Defensive End
Class of 2001
A seven-time Pro Bowl selection, Youngblood played in a club-record 201 consecutive games. He played in five NFC championship games and one Super Bowl.
Presented by Rams Defensive Tackle Merlin Olsen
1971 was not an easy year for Jack Youngblood. The transition to professional football was not as quick as Jack wanted it to be. He was struggling, quite frankly. He was learning lessons, some of them quite painful—like the day he was playing against a 320-pound tackle, Bob Brown, who played with the Oakland Raiders. Bob would put two huge pads on his forearm, and he’d beat on Jack’s chest. After the game, Jack looked like he had been run over by a truck.
But maybe the low point that year came after a loss when in front of the entire team, our head coach, Tommy Prothro, looked down at Jack and said, “Youngblood, you may be the worst player I’ve ever seen.”
Jack Youngblood’s story could have ended right there. One of the reasons it didn’t was because Jack believed in himself. While most of us were worried about Jack staying on the roster, Jack was telling his roommate, who happened to be my brother, Phil, “How am I going to make the All-Pro team if I don’t get more playing time?”
And interestingly, at each step along the way, there were those telling Jack Youngblood, “You’re not big enough,” or “You’re not strong enough,” or “You’re not good enough.”
Well, Jack, you’re here today to have your name inscribed with the elite of pro football, the best of the best. And Youngblood, you may be the best damn football player I ever saw.
Jack Youngblood
I played this game with a passion. It was more like a love affair, a lucid love affair. It alternately intrigued me, it frustrated me, and it rewarded me. But it always kept me returning, giving me a momentary taste of satisfaction but never enough.
We didn’t accomplish all that we set out to do. I didn’t sack the quarterback every time I rushed the passer. I didn’t make every tackle for a loss. I guess no one could. But it wasn’t because I didn’t have the passion to, the desire to. I hope that showed when I played the game.
CHAPTER 6
TEAMWORK
ON ANY SINGLE PLAY, THERE IS A QUARTERBACK WHO takes a snap, an offensive line that makes its blocks, and someone who tries to score. Nobody makes it to the end zone on his own. Similarly, no one earns a scholarship, a trip to the Pro Bowl, or induction into Canton on his own. No one.
What sometimes is overlooked is that there are more teams than just in sports. Family is a team. Neighborhoods are teams. Congregations are teams. Businesses are teams. Any unit that fails to work as a team is asking to fail. As Hall-of-Fame coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Individual commitment to a group effort—that’s what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” And it also helps send players to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Steve Young
Tampa Bay Buccaneers and
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback
Class of 2005
Young led the NFL in passing a record-tying six times. He passed for more than thirty-three thousand yards and 232 touchdowns. He was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX and elected to seven Pro Bowls.
Presented by His Father, Grit Young
By junior high he gravitated to quarterback and he started to learn the art of passing. An ironic thing happened about that time. He was thirteen years old and I had a week off and I said, “What are we gonna do, kids, for vacation?”
And Steve says, “I wanna go to Canton, Ohio, to the Hall of Fame.” And all of the other children said, “What? We’re not gonna do that.”
And he prevailed, he wanted to come here. And so we drove to Chicago, stayed with my sister, and then we came down and went to the Hall. We actually got a picture of Steve at thirteen years old in front of the Hall of Fame. And of course we had to go on to the chocolate factory at Hershey to satisfy the rest of the children.
Steve Young
Ironically it was my mom who kicked off my football career with a bang as she charged the field when I was eight years old. She was upset that another kid had neck tackled me and knocked the wind out of me. She knew that neck tackling was illegal and since no penalty was called she felt it imperative to rush the field and help her little boy. I was scared to death as I saw her sprinting across the field—with good speed I might add—assuming she was coming to give me a kiss or something.
Imagine the visual: late 1960s—twenties-aged woman, lady in a dress, on a football field, purse on her shoulder, big sunglasses, high-heeled shoes aerating the field. In horror, she passed by me and grabbed the kid from the other team. Adrenaline pumping, she picked up the boy by the shoulder pads and told him that the hit was illegal and that he better not do it again!
Mom, now you know why we never gave you any field-level tickets over the last seventeen years.
Sid Gillman would tie my feet with a rope and taught me that playing quarterback was an art form. He’d always gravely say, “This is not a game, it is a canvas and you are Michelangelo.”
I loved Sid. He convinced me not to listen to the many people who believed at that time, in the mid-’80s, that you could not be a great quarterback if you could scramble. Go figure. Times change, it never made much sense to me anyway.
Football is a unique sport. There is no statistic, no touchdown or passing yard, that is accomplished by a single person. The rarest of sports in that you cannot do it alone.
Just think about the times you have achieved something on your own. How great was the celebration compared with when you achieved something when you were on a team? Whether in sports or in a business or with your family, the celebration is so much richer and enjoyable when it is with other people.
My favorite moment still was the five minutes after the Super Bowl when we were alone in the locker room. Just the fifty players and coaches kneeling in the Lord’s Prayer, then looking up at each other and realizing that, yes, we’re world’s champions. No media, no one, just us. That feeling when you do something great together is like no other. No MVP or passing title can compare to the feeling.
That is why football players talk about the camaraderie with a deep sense of passion and commitment. It is the sport that when one of your guys says, “I’ve got your back,” it is not figurative. You depend on them physically and emotionally.
A Hall-of-Fame career is loaded with hundreds of best friends—guys that have your back. I am overwhelmed today to think about the great men that I knew in my seventeen years as a pro, that taught me about what it means to play as a team with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. Men who shared my passion for working together to get it pushed across the line, despite injury and fatigue. Many were my heroes while I played with them and only more so now that I don’t. This honor for me today is also an honor for all those that I played with.
The season of an NFL player is fierce, unlike baseball and basketball where you play lots of games, in football it’s only sixteen. You can’t afford to lose. The routine of training camp, the tricks we played on each other, the hang time with the boys, the gallons of sweat left on the practice field. The drama of who would be the starting players, the daily routine of tightening the cleats, smelling the newly cut grass, laboring through the films, getting constant feedback are all things I will never forget. The anticipation of playing the Cowboys on Monday night, the rhythm of the three-step drop, the thrill of the two-minute drill, the memorization of all the plays and the multiple options Bill Walsh forced me to learn are lasting memories.
Cinching up the shoulder pads and pulling up the socks, walking out into the tunnel and seeing a stadium full of red, Blue Angels buzzing over the stadium like today, the “Star Spangled Banner,” all leave an indelible impression on my mind. I think we all love the game because it in some way is a microcosm of our lives in four short quarters over a three-hour period. Filled with twists and turns, unexpected and thrilling, and can leave you breathless and heartless at a flip of a coin. How exciting—makes me want to strap it on again.
When I first came to San Francisco, I soon realized that I was watching the Michelangelo that Sid Gillman had years ago prior spoken about. It was art in action and I was privileged to be holding the palette. Joe Montana was the greatest QB that I had ever seen. I was in awe.
I was tempted many times by the opportunity to play for other teams, but I was drawn to the inevitable challenge to live up to the standard that I was witnessing. I knew that I was a decent player, and for some reason God blessed me with the big picture knowledge that if I was ever going to find out just how good I could get, I needed to stay in San Francisco and learn even if it was brutally hard to do. I had the faith that the opportunity would create itself at the appropriate time. I was tough to live with during some of those years, but as I look back I am thankful for the struggles and trials that I had and for the opportunities that were given to me.
When the opportunity for me opened up, being a regular quarterback was no longer an option, I would have gotten booed out of Candlestick so fast that I had to rise to the new standard of performance that Joe set. I many times thought about quitting as I heard boos during my sleepless nights, but I feared calling my dad. I knew what he would say, “Endure to the end, Steve.”
Football is the only major sport that plays with a ball that is not round and given that, there is destined to be some unique bounces. No career, no matter how great, is smooth all the way through. But one thing is sure; if you are lucky enough to make it a career, you cannot play very long without a love of the game. The game demands too much of you physically, emotionally, and even spiritually to stay in it if you don’t love it. I don’t care how much you get paid, you show me a six-, eight-, or ten-year veteran of the NFL and I’ll show you a man that loves the game by definition.
Money isn’t the key at the moment of impact. I have seen a lot of guys play for money in practice and warm-ups, but I have never seen one play for money at the point of contact. You cannot buy a football player on game day. He plays for the love of the game. That is why it is impossible for money to ruin it.
I love the game of football. It is an amazing sport that teaches kids and adults powerful lessons that can contribute to making us successful human beings. I love that so many people are drawn to the game—you can see here today—it is no surprise to me, and I encourage others to get involved in the game and to allow your children to play, as lon
g as properly coached. Teamwork, accountability, dedication, trust, faith are a few of the lessons that my teammates and I have learned over seventeen professional seasons.
I have thrown 107 interceptions in my career. Every time without fail, there is a moment when all of your teammates look back at you and say, “Why did you throw it to THAT guy?” either by the words out their mouth or by the look on their face, the latter even hurt more. All of the mitigating circumstances and excuses came rushing into your mind: the receiver turned the wrong way, the lineman missed the block, the ball was wet, it was tipped by a defensive player.
And on and on, you can think of all the excuses. It was years before I learned the tough lesson that my teammates didn’t respond to the mitigating circumstances. Despite the fact that the excuses were true, they did not care. I thought that I lost them with the ducking of the original question, “But why did YOU throw it to THAT guy?”
The bottom line was that the throw I made messed it up. I learned to turn to my teammates and say, “I messed up, it’s on me, but WE are going to go down and score next time down the field, what do you say?”
I know my teammates and friends can attest that I like my options and have a hard time deciding, but when you grow up having big linemen ask you tough questions about your decision-making skills, it has a lasting impact on you.
Learning to be ultimately accountable for my throws has taught me an enduring lesson in life. You must own up to your mistakes and then, more importantly, repent or fix the problem.
I used to hold on to the ball despite the fact that my receiver was open because I couldn’t see him. I’m a lot shorter than Dan. Many times the big linemen blocked my view. It was Mike Holmgren who yelled at me one game and said, “Jerry’s open. Why didn’t you throw it to him?”
The Class of Football Page 19