CHAPTER 10
PERSEVERANCE
LIKE ANY PERSON IN ANY FIELD, EACH HALL-OF-FAME player faced obstacles that, at times, seemed insurmountable.
Many stumbled, on and off the field. Just as many were thrown for a loss, in and out of the game. Almost all were bloodied at one point or another, only to battle on the way Hall-of-Fame players, and the most accomplished of people, do.
Though they beat the odds to get to the NFL, and beat even greater odds to get to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, their stories and their backgrounds in many ways do not seem all that different from anyone else’s. Yet somewhere along the way, a parent helped them, a coach guided them, a thought inspired them, and their will drove them to overcome and to succeed. They recognized that, for all the demands placed upon them, they also were provided many strengths.
And at times of crisis, at moments of doubt, they maximized them. They persevered.
Gale Sayers
Chicago Bears Running Back
Class of 1977
In his rookie year in 1965, Sayers scored a rookie record twenty-two touchdowns. He led the league in rushing in 1966 and 1969, and was the MVP of three Pro Bowls.
Presented by Bears Coach George Halas
For me and for you, Canton is the birthplace of the National Football League. The date—September 17, 1920—the place Ralph Hay’s auto engines agency, seventeen men representing seven clubs who had unheard of dreams for their child. Since that day and until today, July 30, 1977, it has been the most priceless privilege of my professional life to see our dreams come true and to watch our ugly duckling develop into a magnificent eagle.
For this privilege I thank the men of football, men who were and are very special men, who have no equal. Today it is a pleasure to offer my congratulations of the Chicago Bears to Frank Gifford, Forrest Gregg, Bart Starr, and Bill Willis, who join the ranks of those who made our dreams come true.
Now I will tell you publicly that each of you did your job so well that you were the cause of many sleepless nights for me as you helped defeat my beloved Bears. I have caught up now with my sleep and will remember only how pleased I am to share this occasion with you.
Now may I take a few moments to tell you about your fellow enshrine that not only helped make our dreams come true but who also captured my heart, Gale Sayers. Gale Sayers, magic in motion.
The first time I saw Gale Sayers was on film when my assistant had some Kansas University highlights and we watched them over and over again and I was puzzled. I could not believe what I had seen. I knew I was not watching Red Grange. I knew I was not watching George McAfee. I knew I was watching someone special. And I was watching someone I wanted very much with the Bears, but it wasn’t easy. Lamar Hunt also had the rights to Gale and that was a pretty tough assignment. But luck was with us.
When I first met Gale, I was impressed with the man. In practice, he went 100 percent. In run plays, he always ran the entire distance to the opposite goal. His teammates admired and respected him because he was always razor sharp physically. Gale recognized that his inherited skills would mean very little without the help of the blockers and he continually expressed his gratitude to them.
If you wish to see perfection as a running back, you had best get a hold of a film of Gale Sayers. He was poetry in motion. His like will never be seen again. Gale Sayers is thirty-four, athletic director of Southern Illinois University. Gale is the youngest player ever to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. With a captured heart and a voice of love, I proudly present for induction into the Hall of Fame, Gale Sayers.
Gale Sayers
God gave me a great gift and I had a lot of help developing for this occasion. Reaching this point, however, is not as important as striving to get here. This is true in all professions and all of life’s activities. There are doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers, plumbers, all who strive to do their very best with their abilities.
We hear a lot today about how the American people have lost their dedication to excel. I don’t believe that is true. Each of us excels at different things, sometimes in areas that are only a hobby, more often in our life vocation. The most important thing, however, is to strive to do our very best. Nothing is more of a waste than unrealized potential. Sometimes failure to use one’s talents to the fullest is often the fault of the individual. Nothing could be more tragic.
I am sure many of you have been to a Special Olympics, and if you have, I am sure you have felt the same exhilaration I have felt in watching young people with disabilities strive as hard as they can in various events. The sense of satisfaction they get from striving is, to them, much more important than where they finish in the competition.
As Robert Browning said, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” It is aspiring to reach a goal that is important, and if you should reach that goal, set new goals and strive for them.
A longtime basketball coach at the University of Kansas, Dr. Phog Allen, was once asked what was your best team. He responded by saying, “Ask me in twenty-five years and let me see what they have done in their life.”
It is not enough to rest on yesterday’s triumphs, but to continually strive for new goals and accomplishments. I hope that when we look back twenty-five years from now, we can see this not as a zenith of our accomplishments but as a milestone in a life of striving for excellence, striving for even more distant goals.
Emlen Tunnell
New York Giants and Green Bay Packers Safety
Class of 1967
Tunnell intercepted seventy-nine passes and gained more yards on kickoff, punt, and interception returns (924) in 1952 than the NFL’s rushing leader.
Presented by Giants Team Chaplain, Reverend Benedict Dudley
Someone asked me whether or not I ever played the game. I’ll be perfectly truthful: Looking back on it now and standing here in the Hall of Fame, I wish I had played football. But I had a very deep religious conviction when I was growing up which kept me from playing the game; I was a very devout coward.
Just about twenty years ago come next spring, I was in the New York Giants’ football office, which was then on West Forty-second Street, with a man whom I cherished as the closest friend that I’ve ever had, who’s in the Hall of Fame now and went in with the first inductees, Tim Mara. And I remember that day in the spring when a fella came in the office, said that he had not been drafted by any team in the National Football League, and he wanted to know whether or not he could get a tryout with the New York Giants.
In the beginning, the Maras, Tim and his two sons, Jack and Wellington, probably were not too enthusiastic. Tim didn’t know anything about football. Of course, he was a man capable of good judgment, particularly when this young fellow said that he had hitchhiked his way over to New York from Philadelphia. He said that if he didn’t get a contract from the Giants, he didn’t have any money to go back home again. They gave him a chance and here we are just a little more than nineteen years later.
He did many things. He was a great football player because he had tremendous desire. He had great dedication, and he was willing to pay the price with discipline. I would present him as all of the other gentlemen who have gone in this morning can be presented—not just as a football player but as a wonderful human being with a great big heart for others. In fact, I’ve never heard him condemn anyone. Somehow or other he has a way of understanding everyone with whom he has ever come into contact with and saying something nice about someone. I wish that I had found perfection of charity in my early years quite as easily and as completely as he has found it.
Emlen Tunnell
I’d like to thank the Mara family that was so nice to give me a chance to play the game that I liked. I guess it goes a little bit beyond like; it’s love. And before I get a little choked up here, I’d like to thank the truck driver, wherever he is, that gave me the ride over to New York.
Merlin Olsen
Los Angeles Rams Defensive Tackle
Class of 1982
/> A member of the “Fearsome Foursome,” Olsen was named to fourteen consecutive Pro Bowls and the Rams’ All-Time Team.
My flower is wilting. I have been sitting, searching for a few words, and one of the words that came rather quickly was improbable. How very improbable it would be to look back at the course that would bring me here today.
I wanted to be an athlete; that was a desire I carried from a very young age. Unfortunately with feet and hands that didn’t quite match the rest of the body, and the ability to fall down on flat sidewalks, I was not very impressive to my coaches. In fact, although my name was on the sign-up sheet usually first or shortly thereafter, I was also one of the first cut from all those teams.
And things got so bad finally in the ninth grade, my junior high school coach pulled me aside and said, “Merlin, why are you doing this to yourself? Why don’t you use this energy and apply it to some other field? Go work on the school paper. Find a place to use this energy because our job here at the junior high school is to develop athletes for the high school—and you are never going to be an athlete. Just let it go.”
Well, I have to say I didn’t always listen to my coaches, and there are some of them back here, and thank goodness I didn’t or I would have never had a chance to make it to Canton.
In order to be here, there had to be great commitment not only of physical assets but of mind and emotion. Commitments that often take a very heavy toll on family. I think much of the honor that we share here on the stage today should be handed out to the special members of our family who are here with us.
I don’t know how football wives, wives of professional athletes, put up with some of the things that they have to put up with. To be sitting trying to chat with your husband at a restaurant and suddenly an arm goes in front of your face, and your fork is stuck out here, and you realize that someone has just come to get an autograph, not even knowing that you are there….
My mom is a great lady. She came to my first college game, and actually, the first time she saw me play, someone wacked me in the nose and I had a nose bleed that was just buckets of blood pouring down my face before I knew what happened. My father had to grab her as she was coming out of the stands. And I am not sure if she was coming to help me or take on the guy who had hit me.
To know that there were so many people who cared that I was here today, it gives me a feeling that is truly uplifting and special. I love the game of football. I liked playing the game—more than liked playing the game. There was some special magic out on that piece of grass out there on that field. And win or lose when I came off the field, it was always coming down.
I am sure that the thing I miss most about the game is the people, the very special people, and those incredible highs and lows. You can imagine being at the top of the world one minute and down in the cellar the next. Compress that kind of emotion in one brief span and you have the roller coaster life of a professional football player.
But it is a life you come to love, you share with friends, and I don’t doubt for a minute that if you could find a time capsule, today’s enshrinees would jump in quickly, go back and put on our twenty-year-old bodies, race over and grab the first jersey and helmet we could find, and enjoy—even in this heat—having the chance to once more play the game.
Sam Huff
New York Giants and
Washington Redskins Linebacker
Class of 1982
Huff intercepted thirty passes, played in six NFL title games, five Pro Bowls, and was the Redskins’ player-coach in 1969.
Presented by Giants Assistant Coach and Cowboys Head Coach Tom Landry
My first glance of Sam Huff was in 1956, when he reported to our New York Giants training camp in Winooski, Vermont. At that time, he was a six-foot-one, 230-pound offensive and defensive lineman. He looked like a young, baby-faced athlete with a soft-looking body. I was not too impressed when I first saw him.
So it wasn’t surprising to see him pack his bags and head for the airport after a few days in training camp. But fortunately, the late Vince Lombardi intercepted him and persuaded him to come back. And I tell you, that was the smartest decision Sam ever made.
I figured then he was probably intelligent enough to play middle linebacker for us. But Sam was a very dedicated player and good student of the game. I never had any trouble with him. Anytime he started to goof off, I gave him two choices—he either straighten up his act or go back to the coal mines of West Virginia.
You know, it’s amazing how quick he straightened up.
Sam Huff
Now here is something I would like to share with you about a football player:
You can criticize him, but you can’t discourage him. You can defeat his team, but you can’t make him quit. You can get him out of a game, but you can’t get him out of football. He is your personal representative on the field, your symbol of fair and hard play.
He may not be an All-American, but he is an example of the American way. He is judged not for his race, nor for his social standing, not for his finances, but by the democratic yardstick of how well he blocks, tackles, and sacrifices individual glory for the overall success of his team. He is a hardworking, untiring, determined kid, doing the very best he can for his team.
And when you come out of the stadium, disappointed and feeling upset that your team has lost, he can make you feel mighty ashamed with just two sincerely spoken words—we tried.
George Musso
Chicago Bears Guard and Tackle
Class of 1982
Musso became the first player to achieve All-NFL status at two positions—tackle in 1935 and guard in 1937.
A lot of you see me walking with a cane and having people help me. I want you to know that this didn’t have a thing to do with football.
Twenty years ago I was in a head-on accident in Illinois. I was going to an old-pro meeting in St. Louis, and someone made a mistake and went around a truck and hit one of my old teammates. Bill Butler from Alabama and I were going over to a pro football meeting at a place called the Hill, which is an Italian area over at St. Louis. Well, we never made it.
It put me in the hospital with fifty-four broken bones. Both my legs were broken, my knees, my chest, my back, one ankle, and a break down below the knee. I was unconscious for five weeks and was not expected to live. When I finally awakened, my legs were just hanging there in a state of ropes and wires. I just couldn’t believe it. But that didn’t stop me. I just made up my mind that wouldn’t stop me and within five and a half months, I did get out of there, using walkers and canes. I was out of there and finally went home and took a lot of therapy, and that is why I use the cane.
The first time I met Mr. Halas was in the spring of 1933. I was in Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, and I had received a letter from the Chicago Bears. In the letter it said that he would like to see me, he would like for me to come up and have a tryout with the Bears. Enclosed was a $5 check with a note that said, “This $5 check will take care of your $3 train fare from Decatur to Chicago on the Wabash, and there will be $2 for incidentals.”
Well, that was about the largest bonus I have ever gotten and I think it was hard back in those days for even Halas to mail me the $5 because in 1933, he still owed some of the boys in 1932. I was fortunate to get that $5.
I went on to work twelve years for Mr. Halas and his ball club. One thing about Halas, he was fair, he was honest, he is a man of his word and a great coach and a great businessman. He had all the qualities. He saw way back when—and he told a few of us fellows—that football was going to be larger than baseball. And we are about there now.
I remember back in those years we played the kind of football your Canton Bulldogs played—rough, tough, get out there and play. Played sixty minutes and, of course, Halas wanted to try to make gentlemen out of some of us. You know a lot of them liked to go on the train and go into the other big cities with just shirts and short sleeves, but Mr. Halas put down a rule.
He said
, “When we travel, we are going with coats and ties. If we go on trains, we go with coats and ties, when we go into the hotels we have coats and ties.” And he was building all the time. He could see this from way back, and he had, of course, in this amount of time, changed some of the rules about college ballplayers not being able to go ahead and to sign until after their class had graduated.
I don’t think we would have this today if it wouldn’t have been for Mr. Halas, Art Rooney, Tim Mara, Curly Lambeau, and George Marshall. If Halas hadn’t gotten all these fellows together and kept this league going, it wouldn’t be here. A lot of them had to go out and borrow money like he did, even Charley Bidwill in Chicago. I think Charley was a good friend of Halas, and a millionaire in Chicago, and I think Halas could talk him out of anything he wanted. I think that was how he kept the Bears going.
Here I am before you and I am going into the Hall of Fame and there is nothing greater in anyone’s life than to finally finish in a sport that he has participated in and to go as high as he can go. And I think one thing that I am proud of and honored for is my wife and three daughters and my twelve grandchildren, all sitting out here. My wife, Pauline, we will be married forty-six years in December, and we have gotten along pretty good all these years. Of course, we never argue because when we start, I take a walk and go outside. I spend a lot of time outside.
Paul Warfield
Cleveland Browns and
Miami Dolphins Wide Receiver
Class of 1983
An eight-time Pro Bowl player and a key to Cleveland and Miami’s offenses, Warfield caught passes worth 8,565 yards and eighty-five touchdowns.
Presented by Warren Harding High School (Ohio) Coach Gene Slaughter
After spending thirty-three years of my life as a coach, I have come to realize that coaching is nothing more than a series of experiences. But if you are lucky, there will be an experience that will be the ultimate of all those things. Today I have reached my ultimate experience.
The Class of Football Page 27