My Hall of Fame Moment
I finally entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame (without a ballot, bust, or jacket).
My earliest fleeting memories of the National Football League are fuzzy black-and-white vignettes of an NFL Championship game in the early sixties—likely one of the aged Y.A. Tittle’s failed attempts to win a Title with the New York Giants.
Although Tittle came up empty in his quest for an NFL Title, he did end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his bust forever enshrined with the best-of-the-best from the past 120 years of gridiron glory. And he’s in good company.
Go East, old man
Having lived the majority of my years on the West Coast, I had never taken the opportunity to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Now, living in Western North Carolina, The HOF is a mere eight-hour drive north of us and very close to my birthplace in Marietta, Ohio.
With the proximity issue resolved, I determined we would kill two birds with a single stone if the chance arose. I could reconnect with the town where I spent my first year on earth and visit the HOF, where many of my boyhood heroes are enshrined. Canton was now on our bucket list.
Why Canton?
You may ask yourself, “The Hall of Fame . . . in Canton? Why?”
The Hall of Fame explains:
The American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League, was founded in Canton on September 17, 1920.
The Canton Bulldogs were an early-day pro football power, even before the days of the NFL. They were also the first two-time champion of the NFL in 1922 and 1923. The great Jim Thorpe, the first big-name athlete to play pro football, played his first pro football with the Bulldogs, starting in 1915.
Early in the 1960s, Canton citizens launched a determined and well-organized campaign to earn the site designation for their city.
So, that’s why.
Family matters
Growing up in a house full of sports fans—mom and dad were avid baseball, basketball, and football fans—with two older brothers who had their moments of glory as amateurs, it was a given that I’d grow up to be a football or baseball player.
In the early days, when every dream seemed possible, my friends and I roamed the open schoolyard playing ball until the sun failed us, all the while proclaiming ourselves the next “Joe Namath” or “Bart Starr” or the like.
Then—in a flash—I blew through high school, and living got more complicated. There was college coursework to master, employment to manage, and a social calendar to maintain. Meanwhile, my glory days (such as they were) receded in the rearview mirror. But I never lost my love for football and baseball.
Wedding plans
In early September 2022, my wife and I headed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for my nephew’s wedding. This celebration provided the perfect opportunity for a road trip to the Hall of Fame and my hometown in Ohio. After a short stay on Mackinac Island, we headed south toward The Hall.
Rolling down Interstate 77, I greatly anticipated my first glimpse of the HOF and Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. On a beautiful late September afternoon, we rounded a bend, and there it was—The home of childhood heroes, immortalized in bronze, surrounded by Lombardi Trophies and other memorabilia reflecting their glory days.
This was a kid’s dream at any age.
Best exhibit in The Hall
The entire HOF complex is impressive—from the sports turf exhibition field to Tom Benson Stadium to the bronze busts in the inner sanctum. Then there’s the dazzling Superbowl Ring evolution in a lighted showcase 10 yards long, with more diamonds per square foot than any place on earth. The early rings are classic; the later rings are fantastic.
As impressive as the busts, rings, and shiny things are, nothing compares with the “A Game for Life” interactive theatre. From a darkened hallway, you enter a vintage NFL locker room and take your place on wooden benches flanked by open lockers revealing the uniforms of The Great.
Montana, Rice, Olsen, Jones, Nitschke, Sanders . . .
As the lights dim, virtual Joe Namath walks to the front of the locker room and takes his place beside a vintage Lombardi-era chalkboard. For the next 30 minutes, Super Joe chalk-talks you through the incredible history of the legends of the game and their on-field exploits. In closing, Joe exhorts visitors to strive for excellence in their own game of life.
Over the years, I’ve wept inside a darkened locker room on more than one occasion. This was one of those times.
Canton or bust
When I “refocused”1 in 2020, I promised myself and my wife that we would take time to smell the roses and find the grand vistas on the highway of life. Since jumping out of corporate America, we’ve made road trips to California, Virginia, South Carolina, and Michigan—including picturesque Mackinac Island. We did a fly-drive adventure to Boise, Idaho, via Denver, Colorado. We’ve dipped our toes in the Atlantic at Carolina Beach and watched the #1 Wake Forest baseball team take on UNC Wilmington at the end of I-40.
And there’s much more to come.
Our trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame was particularly gratifying as I’ve had a love affair with football from the dawn of my existence. While my name never appeared on a HOF Ballot, nor was my bronze likeness added to the Hall of Busts, and I did not slip on a coveted Gold Jacket, I did manage to make it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Quite an achievement for a skinny little kid from La Habra High School.
My preferred term is “refocusing” rather than “retiring.” Join me in my crusade to change the culture and how Americans view life after work. We refocus; we do not retire!