I am sitting here in our comfy room at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Akron South reliving the past 24 hours. Let's tally the checklist of one of the coolest days ever:
• Arrive early at the Pro Football Hall of Fame and secure all-day parking that did not require a shuttle. Check.
• Tour the Hall of Fame. Check.
• Meet Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers. Check.
• Hang out all day with great football fans and talk football in early August. Check.
• Attend the induction ceremonies from the last row in the joint. Check.
• Sneak onto the Fawcett Stadium field. Check.
• Attend the 49er's post-induction ceremony party as a guest of Youngstown's DeBartolo family. Check.
• Have my photo taken with two Hall of Famers and shake the hands of a couple more. Check.
• Arrive at the hotel some 14 hours later both exhausted and giddy and hit the TGI Friday next door for last call and more cool football fans. Check.
This past week was a blur of preparation after the newspaper got a call from a representative of the DeBartolo family offering invitations to a post-induction ceremony bash for Fred Dean, one of six 2008 inductees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. By Wednesday, I had secured tickets to the pre-ceremony fan party, seats to the induction ceremony and, thanks to a great rep from Marriott (and my silver points status), the very last hotel room within 11 miles of the hall.
The only fret we had was parking, since most parking to the event was about a mile away and required a shuttle that would stop shuttling well before the post-induction ceremony party even started. We arrived at the hall at about 9:20 a.m. and after explaining our plight to security, they directed to the neighborhood surrounding the Hall of Fame. Throughout the neighborhood, folks had carved up their yards for parking (a tradition, we are told, that dates back to the beginning of the hall ceremonies in the 1960's).
A guy on Barr Avenue let us park in his driveway for $20, which was a bargain, I have to tell you. We explained we probably would not be back much before 11 p.m. and he assured us the car was safe.
After a short walk to the hall, we grabbed our tickets at "will call" and started to hit the booths in the Mall of Fame, the tented shopping area. Immediately, we found Gale Sayers' booth. Gale was the most accessible Hall of Famer on Saturday and by 10 a.m. I had shaken his hand, gotten my picture taken with him and secured an autographed copy of his new book.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MY HAND IS DOING
Gale is raising funds for his new Gale Sayers Center and is using his fame and his accessibility in the most positive way imaginable. He is just a great guy.
That new book, "My Life and Times," has a forward written by Dick Butkus, who was arriving at about noon to sign autographs as a guest of the Mounted Memories memorabilia company. Hence, I bought a full-sized replica Hall of Fame helmet and Gale and Dick signed it. And they both had to listen to me explain the great family story of how they were involved in my very first autograph almost 40 years ago when Dad took me to father and son night at St. Teresa Catholic Church in Kankakee, Ill.
DICK ENJOYS MY STORY
Dad answered Dick's trivia question first: Who had tackled Gale Sayers when his knee got blown out? Dad knew it was Kermit Alexander of the San Francisco 49ers. A few weeks later, in the mail was a flat football signed by members of the 1969 team including Dick, Gale, Brian Piccolo and others.
They were both polite as I regaled them. Dick has a great handshake.
By early afternoon, the Hall grounds were getting jammed by thousands of fans. Because Darrell Green and Art Monk were getting inducted, the place was becoming a virtual Washington Redskin fan convention. We discovered these are fun, loyal, old-school fans who really enjoyed a good time.
HOF GOES HOG WILD!
In the old days, the induction ceremony took place on the steps of the Hall of Fame, right before the preseason game kickoff at Fawcett Stadium next door. Due to its enormous popularity, they have taken the induction ceremony and made it into a several-day fan festival moving the actual ceremony to the stadium, too. While that is probably a good idea (there's no way the steps area would ever accommodate 15,000 Redskins fans, for instance), the festival is in serious danger of over-running the grounds.
Getting a bottle of water meant a wait of upwards of an hour in a food line by later in the day. There's no place to sit. Until we took our seats in the stadium, in the first eight hours we were there, we probably sat for less than an hour, including a film presentation in the hall and some curb-side relaxing.
At the pre-ceremony fans party, we saw an elderly gentleman pass out while standing at a table. The only chairs were marked for handicapped use. The folks at the Hall need to add benches and water-bottle booths (even the food area in the Hall was taken over for some other event). Luckily, temperatures were in the low 80's for most of the day but had it been a bit warmer, there might have been more problems.
That's really my only complaint.
Some might say the induction ceremony was a bit long (also among the six were Emmitt Thomas, Gary Zimmerman and Andre Tippett) but there were many moving moments, especially when Green and Monk were introduced by their sons.
THE VIEW FROM THE BACK
FIREWORKS!
WE SNEAK ONTO THE FLOOR OF FAWCETT STADIUM
Fred Dean spoke from his heart and stole the show and I would say that even if i was not a guest at his terrific party. It was nice, too, to see Eddie DeBartolo back in the 49ers/NFL fold. His speech introducing Dean was warm and Dean returned the favor when he told the massive induction ceremony crowd and the ESPN audience "...I know the one thing I've learned from Mr. Eddie is that not only does he talk the talk, he walks the walk. And I hope to one day see him in this position of the enshrinees."
The 49ers' post-ceremony party took place in an unbelievably cool tent just a short walk from the stadium on, believe it or not, Barr Avenue where our car was parked a few blocks away. The room was decorated in 49er reds and golds and Dean was joined by other 49er hall of famers like Bob St. Claire, whose hand I also got to shake.
BOB ST. CLAIRE AND SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME (AND EDDIE'S HEAD)
A newspaper photographer from Dean's hometown snapped a few pictures of me and Fred.
WHAT A GREAT GUY! (ALTHOUGH I LOOK WEIRD, AGAIN!)
I also got to shoot some pictures of the DeBartolo family and players posing together.
THE SAN FRANCISCO 49ER CREW CELEBRATE FRED DEAN'S DAY
THE DEBARTOLO FAMILY ENJOYS THE MOMENT
All in all, an incredible day. Still, the hotel was a welcomed sight at about 11:30 p.m. (we were the last ones to check in for the night) and the hotel staff and the TGI Friday folks were still talking about the Redskins horde which had descended on the area.
What a day! Sunday morning we awoke as Bears fans still enjoying the 49ers and Redskins afterglow with fond memories of a truly remarkable experience at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
More later,
Mark
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