Hall of Fame Induction, Part 2

Day Two of my Hall of Fame trip started off slow. I was so wired from the Enshrinement Ceremony that, when we got back to my cousin's house, there was no way I was going to bed. We recorded the ceremony so I watched most of the speeches again, with extensive commentary. When everyone else went to bed, I borrowed computer time to write about the event while it was still fresh.

We all slept in on Sunday and decided not to visit the Hall this year. I wish I had sucked it up and went over for an hour or two. The HOF is such a cool place. You never see everything in one trip and the staff is always updating things so a trip is always worthwhile. If nothing else, they have a great gift shop and you can pick up something for your favorite Steelers fan. They sell other team's stuff, too, though I don't know why. I will add a HOF visit back to the agenda for next year.

The next event is usually the highlight of the trip even though that Enshrinement ceremony would be pretty hard to top. Let me set the stage. Nearly 700,000 people visited Canton during the festivities. Canton really, and I mean really, goes all out for this event, hosting 18 different events over 11 days. This includes concerts, parades, a rib cook-off, a fashion show, fireworks and more. The Enshrinees Roundtable is held in the Canton Memorial Civic Center and is broken into three sections. If you have the general admission-type tickets, you have lunch in one of the meeting areas, then come into the big hall for the roundtable. My cousin and some very cool friends managed to score a table in the main hall. Now we have our own "season tickets" to the roundtable. We keep the same table every year. Ricky Jackson's family was supposed to sit at the table next to us but must have left early. Sitting next to an Enshrinee's family would be wild. Maybe next year!

In the main hall, you eat lunch with the Enshrinees and their presenters. We can take pictures of the stars but are not supposed to ask for autographs or harass them while they eat. That sounded like a good rule, so we just basked in the glow of our heroes. Each table has a commemorative Fotoball with the Enshrinees pictures that one person gets to keep. The people we share the table with won two years in a row. We were a little disappointed and teased them about collusion but I know that I used up all my luck when I scored those great tickets to the ceremony. Seriously, after lucking into seats right behind the Steelers, I'm not due to win for a few more years.

There are speeches and presentations but the reason we show up comes after the meal. All seven Enshrinees joined the Bills Hall of Fame receiver, James Lofton, for a free-for-all talk about football. Lofton asked each player questions about his career. Things started off quietly but, after a bit, they started interrupting each other and having fun. Lofton asked Jerry Rice about the great catch he made to win the 1989 Super Bowl. Rice explained that, if the Bengals were crazy enough to leave him in single coverage, the ball was coming to him to win the game. Rice must have forgotten that the Bengals Defensive Coordinator was sitting right next to him. Coach LeBeau broke down what really happened on that play, explaining that sometime players don't do what you tell them to do. Rice was actually in triple coverage but did not recognize it. He beat three guys who had zeroed in on him and came away as the hero. LeBeau said that was the only time, as a coach, that he wished he was still a player, saying, "If I'd have been on that field, I would have got that ball!" I really cannot do justice to LeBeau's description. Try to catch it on YouTube.

Emmitt Smith got the most cheers, as it was a Dallas crowd, and had some good stories but he was a little quiet. I thought LeBeau, Rice, John Randall and Floyd Little were the most entertaining. If you have not had the chance to hear Floyd Little talk, the man can speak. He has great stories, dating back to being recruited by the Elmira Express, Ernie Davis. Russ Grimm caused a real ruckus when he said that he hated Dallas. Lofton immediately tried to calm down the booing by saying that there was a fine line between love and hate in football. Russ didn't REALLY hate Dallas, right Russ? Grimm said the Cowboys had some of the most loyal fans (big cheer) and some really great players (bigger cheer) but, as a Redskin, even the word "Dallas" got him going. Randall came to Grimm's defense by talking about how much the Vikings hate Green Bay. I can see the point. If the Steelers had any decent teams in their division, I would probably hate them, too.

Just kidding! Rest assured, I can't stand Baltimore, Cincinnati or Cleveland. The talk went on for more than an hour and was as much fun as I expected. I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon than to listen to football greats telling war stories.

After the roundtable, we packed up and headed home. We don't stay for the game. My cousin tells me that watching the game at the HOF is like seeing a high school game. You are very close to the players. If they ever have two teams I even remotely like, I might stay around. The only way I would enjoy a Cowboys-Bengals game is if they beat each other senseless and both lose. I'd pay to see that game.

So now, needless to say, we start thinking about next year's Enshrinement. I am very hopeful for good things. The Bus is eligible for selection and Canton is already planning for the onslaught. If he goes in, I expect each of you to join me in Ohio. We're are thinking about going a few days early to really get into the party.

Now that you suffered through the blog, here is your prize. Enjoy some of the photos from the weekend. If you click a picture, you can view it full size.

Notice that even Joey Porter has a Terrible Towel. The man is cool!

Faneca has one, too!

Obviously, this isn't Ben, though he was there.

Even sitting down, Starks is taller than me.

I hope you enjoyed the piece. Come join us next year and write your own summary.

Hall of Fame Induction, Part 1

Oh. My. God!

I will get the pictures posted after I get back home but I had to write about tonight while the memories were still fresh. What an amazing night. It could have turned out to be very crappy, indeed. I was so excited to see Coach Dick LeBeau at the Hall of Fame parade this morning; I was so busy cheering and clapping, that my pictures of him were not very good. More about that later. Our tickets to the Enshrinement fell through. My cousin and I actually discussed blowing off the ceremony and watching the whole thing on ESPN. We were floating on our host cousin's boat, enjoying cold, refreshing beverages, deciding whether or not to stay at home. We agreed that we came too far and enjoyed last year's ceremony too much to miss out on this opportunity. A lot of things could have gone wrong but things started going right.

I talked before about how welcoming and wonderful the people of Canton, Ohio, are. Every single one of them gets into this whole Hall of Fame celebration. I have exceedingly cool relatives in Canton who host us and hang out with us every year, scoring tickets to big events and making sure we don't get too lost.

Things broke down this year. We did not have tickets and, to make matters worse, we thought the ceremony started an hour later than it actually did. We drove to the field and parked in some nice family's back yard. (Yes, we paid to park. These folks have the right to make a buck on the hysteria, too.) We walked to the field and started talking to the scalpers. These vultures wanted $50 for a $30 ticket and couldn't even give us two seats together. We decided to try the ticket counter but my cousin found the Will Call window and we went there first. The nice people at the window saw we were Steelers fans and said they had some great seats for us and a surprise we would really like. All for the normal price of $30.

We had to rush in because Coach Dad was about to start speaking. We hurried around to our section and hustled up the stairs to find our seats. It wasn't until we were sitting down, enjoying the speech when I looked a few rows ahead of us and saw Chris Kemoeatu. We kept looking around. There was James Harrison, Troy Polamalu, Ryan Clark. There was Ben Roethlisberger and Ike Taylor and Max Starks and Heath Miller. Alan Faneca and Joey Porter both made the trip, too. All of the Steelers had Terrible Towels and they waved them freely. I thought it was very classy that Joey Porter, now a Cardinal, waved a Towel with the rest of the team.

Many of the players had on their Detroit #44 LeBeau jerseys and Coach gave a great speech. This is truly an amazing man who deserves every single honor he has received. You can tell his players love him as much as Coach LeBeau loves them. He forgot to mention the linebackers and single out any of them. I am sure he got caught up in the excitement and missed part of his speech. I hope our great linebacking corps does not feel slighted; he certainly talks about their quality every other time he gets the chance.

After the speech, I went down a few rows with the rest of the Steeler fans in that section and got some snaps of the team. If any of them are decent, I will post them here. It was an absolute football fan dream. I got to spend an evening in the sun with the best football team in the world, honoring the best coach in the world. Ahh. Mission complete.

Many of the Steelers took off after that but some stayed around. When John Randall finished his speech, the hoopla started for Russ Grimm and a very cool thing happened. Most of the Steelers who stayed were offensive linemen. They all put away their Terrible Towels and put on Russ Grimm Redskins jerseys. I thought this was a very nice tribute to a great player and a great coach. I guess Faneca was not in on the coordination because he did not have a jersey to wear. But it was good to see him make the trip for an old coach. I always liked Faneca. He still does a lot for the city of Pittsburgh and remains one of my favorite linemen.

Coach Grimm's speech was another very good one. I will replay some of his comments for my sons, two of whom were linemen. The part about the how the best feeling for an offensive lineman was to move another man from point A to point B against his will was pure gold. I hope you all took time to listen to him talk.

The rest of the speeches were good, though Ricky Jackson must have had a few concussions too many. Emmitt Smith sure is a talented speaker, though all his talk of how great it was to be a Cowboy got me nauseous. He started laying it on so thick, I thought someone was going to lay out a patch of water for him to walk across. Dude, you were a fantastic running back and, apparently, a snazzy dancer but get over yourself! All that crap about how the "Triplets" and their incredible balance were what won the Super Bowl against the Steelers. Give me a break! Neil O'Donnell should have won the MVP for Dallas in that game. Seriously! I tried to call Neil to talk about this but he couldn't find his receiver. (That's right! The old jokes are still the best!)

Leaving the stadium, we had to walk up a big hill to get the the right gate. We hadn't taken two steps when a nice Browns fan (Yeah, who knew?) in a golf cart offered us a ride up the hill and would have driven us all the way to my car if we had let him. We had a nice talk about football, the Hall and his restaurant. We may go to North Canton tomorrow and check out Mr. Walther's restaurant. He said he would be open. Come on by!

Just a quick note about the parade. It was very well attended and very well run, like every year. There were more floats than last year and people did seem more into it. I get such a kick out of seeing the Hall of Fame greats like Lem Barney and Art Donovan, who come back every year. Seeing my childhood demi-god, Gayle Sayers, is a high point, each time. What bugged me last year and this year was the lack of Steeler greats in the parade. Franco and Swannie came this year but where were the rest? Dick Lebeau goes into the Hall as a Lion. But, let's be honest: This man is as significant a part of Steelers history as anyone since Our Father, Who Is Art In Heaven learned to play poker and win a football franchise. Rod Woodson didn't even show up for the parade. What was that about. I would like to see more of the alumni come to commune with the fans,

So Day One of fanboy heaven is done. We may hit the Hall in the morning but will play that by ear.  All in all, Canton, you have done your town proud. I can't wait for Day Two!

Football Season: T - 2 and Counting!

So, what is going on in the world of Pittsburgh sports? How about them Pirates? Bwaaa haaa haaa haaa! In case you haven't been keeping track, the Bucs lost so many games that they are last place in four different divisions. They are so far back, they would have to win every game for the rest of this season and next to make the playoffs.  Is this some Curse of the Bambino thing? We let Barry Bonds get away and have sucked ever since?

Enough with the torture. Let's talk about real sports.

Ahhhhh!  Can you smell it?  Football season is finally here!  In my humble opinion, the season starts with with the annual Haj to Canton.  Hanging out at the Hall of Fame, soaking up all that atmosphere, really gets me psyched for the season.  Apparently, the Steelers agree with me.  They plan to modify their practice schedule to come hang out with me at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.  No, seriously! I'm saving a seat for Potsie, one for Deebo, two for Big Snack, one for B-Mac.  I expect the O-line will also come to honor Coach Grimm, but I can only save so many seats, guys. You'll have to find your own!

Also, with the start of the season, I can feel the playoff beard itching to break free.  Soon, beard, soon! Your time will come!  As soon as, and I mean the very second, the Steelers make the playoffs, the beard gets to come back!  By my professional calculation, that should be by the third quarter of game seven, halftime of game eight, at the latest.  Hey, it's the beginning of the season. I am supposed to be ridiculously overconfident! The team looks great this year.  With Smith and Polamalu healthy and Farrior doing that Dorian Gray thing, the D will be on fire. If the secondary gets motivated and Special Teams comes along my plan will have a lot better chance of succeeding. Plan, you say? What plan would that be? This year, the playoff beard will be special.  I will start it when the Steelers make the playoffs, keep it growing through our Super Bowl win, carry it through the Penguins playoffs and celebrate with Vince and Stanley in the same town again. Now that, my friends, is a dream worth dreaming!

And it all starts tomorrow with the drive to Canton. For an Ohio town, those folks really do it right. The population of the town more than doubles for a few days. From what I can tell, most of the locals welcome the madness. It seems that everyone knows how big of a deal this is so they pull out all the stops.  I will miss some of the festivities but will catch the rib burnoff, the parade, the ceremony and the luncheon.  I enjoyed the speeches last year but the luncheon was the absolute coolest part.  Being a few tables away while football royalty talks about their playing days is such a high.  If you watch the session on ESPN, I'll be the guy in the Woodson jersey, with the mile wide smile.  If I get to shake hands with Coach Dad, I'll be in heaven.  I know most of the 17.43 billion Steelers fans on hand will want autographs but not me.  I just want to shake his hand and thank him for fifty years of football, the zone blitz, the best defense in the game, and just being one hell of a great guy.  The ritual of reading "T'was the Night Before Christmas" is one of my favorite stories in football.  I'd kill to sneak into the room for that some year.  Okay, maybe not actually "kill" cause Coach would have to pipe the narration into my cell and that would not be cool.  How about if I just nudge someone really hard? Maybe that would work.

Okay.  I'll get some pictures up after the event for those sad souls forced to live vicariously through me. Wow. I can't imaging how boring your life must be that you have to look to me for entertainment. Here is a day in the life: sleep, drive, work, drive, sleep, drive, work, drive, sleep, drive, cookie break, sleep, etc. Seriously folks, run now! Save yourselves!

See y'all after the induction!