August 5, 2006 Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductees

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PAUL TOPLE / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Hall of Fame inductees Troy Aikman (from left), John Madden, Rayfield Wright and Harry Carson poses during the Football Hall of Fame press conference at the Marriott Hotel in Canton, Ohio, Friday, August 4, 2006. (PaulTople/Akron Beacon Journal/MCT) 1033503

MIKE ROEMER / AP
** FILE ** Green Bay Packers Reggie White talks with the media in Green Bay, Wis., after being named The Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year, in this Jan. 6, 1999 photo. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer) NY160




Hall of Fame Notes: A winning class for football Hall



By BARRY WILNER
The Associated Press

Leaders and champions.

Those are the defining characteristics of the six men who will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame today.

Record-setting quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Warren Moon. Super Bowl-winning coach and television icon John Madden. Impregnable blocker Rayfield Wright. Versatile linebacker Harry Carson.

And Reggie White, the Minister of Defense.

Quite a class.

It also includes Lesley Visser, who Friday night became the first woman honored by the Hall of Fame when she received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award at a dinner in Canton, Ohio.

Previous winners include the likes of Curt Gowdy, Ray Scott, Pat Summerall, John Madden, Dick Enberg, Charlie Jones, Jack Buck, Frank Gifford, Lindsey Nelson, Chris Schenkel, Ed Sabol and Roone Arledge.

"I am humbled by this award," she said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday. "I grew up listening to Curt Gowdy on cheap transistors, and to think that I am going to get an award named after Pete Rozelle is really staggering to me."

White will be inducted posthumously. The career sacks leader when he retired in 2000, White died a little more than 18 months ago at age 43.

White, Aikman and Moon, the former Washington Husky and current Seahawks commentator, got in on their first attempts. The two quarterbacks often felt the sting of a hit by White, who had 198 sacks and was a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

Aikman was the first quarterback to guide his team to three Super Bowl wins in four years (1993, '94, '96). His 90 victories in the 1990s are the most for a quarterback in any decade.

Unlike the younger Cowboy, Wright waited "forever" to get into the Hall. He was chosen by the seniors committee 27 years after his last game.

The offensive tackle made the Pro Bowl six times and was an All-Pro four times. Wright was a key blocker for the first five 1,000-yard rushers in Cowboys history. In his 13 seasons, his teams won seven division titles and played in five Super Bowls, winning twice.

Carson played in nine Pro Bowls in his 13 seasons, but it took nearly two decades after he retired in 1988 for him to make the Hall. Two years ago, in fact, he asked the voters to stop considering him. They didn't.

"He wasn't flashy like Lawrence Taylor and didn't grab the headlines," Giants center Bart Oates said. "He was the guy in the middle who did his job exceptionally well, and he inspired other guys to do their jobs well."

Madden's short coaching career, 10 seasons, produced a 103-32-7 record and a win in the 1977 Super Bowl. Only George Halas and Curly Lambeau, both Hall of Famers, reached 100 wins quicker than Madden, who became Raiders coach when he was 32 in 1969.

A fear of flying and opportunities in broadcasting led Madden to quit in 1978. He has since become a pitchman for a popular video game, traveled the country in a bus dubbed the "Madden Cruiser," and when he joins NBC this season will have done analysis on NFL broadcasts for all four major networks.

Coach's corner

Wright is going into the Hall of Fame as an offensive tackle, a position he had never played until he got to the NFL.

But that's not even close to the biggest adjustment of a career in which he didn't even play football until his senior year in high school.

Wright thought he was going into the Air Force after school because his family didn't have enough money to send him to college. Then, he thought he was going to Fort Valley State to play basketball, which was his favorite sport. But when spring-football practices began, coach Stan Lomax called to say Wright had been recruited as an athlete and needed to turn out for football, too.

Madden heard a lesson as Wright recited the story.

"Sometimes with kids, I think we plug 'em into something too young," Madden said. "We take kids, they play Little League, they say he's a baseball player, I don't want him playing basketball, football. He's a basketball player, he can't play baseball. He's playing soccer.

"We won't let them play. You don't know what they are when they're kids. You don't know what they're going to be."

Youth games

Madden's video game has developed quite a following among the younger generation.

His answers at a news conference for the six Hall of Fame inductees, however, couldn't quite keep the attention of his grandson, Jack. He wandered out of the room in the middle of one of Madden's answers.

"Jack, am I boring you?" Madden shouted. "It will get better, I promise. Troy Aikman is coming up here."

Hit parade

White's widow, Sara, will be accepting her husband's posthumous induction into the Hall of Fame today, and on Friday she was asked whether White had reflected on some of the Eagles' playoff failures while he played in Philadelphia.

"You know what? You, as a player, you have to forget the losses," she said, and turned to the five Hall of Fame inductees seated around her. "Am I right? Troy will tell you. He got hit by Reggie 50 times one game. He had to forget all that."

Aikman spoke up to correct her.

"Fifty-five," he said.

Seattle Times staff reporter Danny O'Neil contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company