True Hall of Famers

I am a 49ers fan since 1984. Without a doubt Joe Montana is perhaps the greatest quarterback in the business. His style and techniques are studied by coaches, linebackers and prospective NFL & NCAA quarterbacks across North America. His departure of the Bay Area led to a new beginning of a very talented quarterback who created his own legacy in the NFL history. Steve Young is the name of the game. I think til these days he is one of the most underrated Superbowl MVP. He doesn't have a passing stronge arm like John Elway, the explosive accuracy of Dan Marino or run like Michael Vick. What earned him the Superbowl ring is his quick thinking and scrambling skill. So who is the next Steve Young??? Alex Smith??? I don't think so! I going to leave the rest of the writing to sport writer Charles Robinson. Here is his commentary of the Hall of Fame induction of Dan Marino and Steve Young....


CANTON, Ohio – Someone send the footage of Sunday's Pro Football Hall of Fame induction to Terrell Owens. That thought kept going through my head as I sat and watched the proceedings in Fawcett Stadium.

How long has it been since we've applauded star players who love pro football more than they expect pro football to love them back? If you had to think hard about that question, then maybe you should have been in Canton, too.

For one day, the annual enshrinement ceremony encouraged us to remember the NFL at its best and not worry about the league at its worst. So we mothballed Owens, Ricky Williams and Sean Taylor. We forgot the image of Adam "Pacman" Jones singing the praises of his bling on an NFL Network broadcast and Jake Plummer giving the middle finger to fans. We even disregarded the eight first-round draft picks engaged in training camp holdouts, including two – Chicago's Cedric Benson and Miami's Ronnie Brown – who were supposed to debut in Monday's Hall of Fame game.

Instead, we took the equivalent of offseason aspirin and spent a minute to remember that sometimes star players can give more than they receive.

So we celebrated Dan Marino, who managed to rewrite nearly every NFL passing record while spending his entire 17-year career with one team, the Miami Dolphins. We paid tribute to Steve Young, who rose from the role of perpetual second fiddle on the San Francisco 49ers to win the affection of the Bay Area.

We got to know Fritz Pollard, one of the game's African-American pioneers, whose hardships should make it a felony to complain about million-dollar contracts. And we paid homage to Benny Friedman, who went against league trends and planted the seed of today's scoreboard-happy passing games.

Sitting in the stadium Sunday and seeing former teammates embracing and Hall of Fame inductees mingling in bunches, it was easy to suspect that emotion would carry the day. But there was an underlying message, and it was slightly similar to last week's Baseball Hall of Fame inductions when Ryne Sandberg and Wade Boggs were critical of individual players becoming bigger than their sport. If anything, Sunday's ceremonies in Canton should have pounded home salient points: Nobody transcends the game, nobody deserves exclusive rights to a spotlight and every current player should wake up feeling blessed.

It was a message that gave me pause. I watched the glowing terms used to describe these men, and I wonder what we'll say about Owens, should he be enshrined one day. More appropriately, I wonder what Owens would say about everyone else.

It's a shame T.O. wasn't there when former Dolphins coach Don Shula walked onto the stage and got arguably the loudest standing ovation of the day. Or when Steve Young's wife began to weep when her husband said it was most important to be considered a Hall of Fame dad and husband. And surely Owens would have liked to have heard Pollard's grandson Stephen Towns remind the audience of the tragic and embarrassing moratorium NFL owners placed on black players in the 1930s and '40s.

Obviously, training camp precluded Owens from attending. But I hope he caught the ceremony on television. Maybe he saw that for all the talk of statistics and greatness in football – for all the money being made – the truly impactful statements were about history, family and journey.

Nobody stood at the podium and said: "Thank God I was the highest-paid player at my position" or "I could have won a Super Bowl if it wasn't for my quarterback." Instead, it was a merry-go-round of tributes to former teammates, coaches, family and fans. And a remembrance that players don't become beacons in the NFL simply by standing on their wallets.

They get there by having appreciation for both history and their peers. They get there on the shoulders of teammates – even the flawed and less talented ones. They get there by having a special kind of reverence. That's what we saw from Marino and Young on Sunday.

Marino talked about his pride of being part of a great Western Pennsylvania tradition of quarterbacks, including Joe Namath, Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana and Jim Kelly. He looped his speech back to Shula several times and gave special thanks to Mark Clayton and Mark Duper, who caught so many of his touchdown passes. Then, in what will be a memorable twist among Hall of Fame speeches, one of his sons tossed Marino a football, and he weaved Clayton into the spotlight.

"Go deep, Mark," Marino said, imploring Clayton to stand and catch one last pass.

It wasn't the grandstanding kind of gesture, either. Truthfully, both Marino and Young showed a remarkable amount of humility for the accomplishments of Friedman and Pollard, who passed away years before being recognized for their pivotal accomplishments. Surely, not all Hall of Famers are this deferential to their family or coaches or forefathers. But they should be. Surely some are gleeful at being fawned over for their talents for one last moment. But that's not what Sunday was about. And that's precisely what made it such a feel-good day for the league.

"I've accomplished many things," Marino said, "but what I cherish more than any record I hold, fourth-quarter comeback, or any wins I was involved in is the relationships."

Like Young, I'm guessing Marino wasn't just talking about football.

"For me, it will never again be third and 10, late in the fourth quarter and down by four in Candlestick Park," Young said. "Nothing in life can be like those great moments. But with those experiences, and all the other good things that happened, life today is even better. With my wife Barb and my two sons, Braedon and Jackson, I have found the secret to life: It's loving others more than yourself."

That's a significant point. Too bad there are some people in today's NFL who still don't get it.