The Class of Football

by Adam Schefter

  These instances prove to me that my dad does not live his life for himself but, rather, an entire community revels in his accomplishments, just as a whole community shares in his defeats. His work and care for people within his community is undoubtedly one of his life’s works. As you will hear in a minute, I can proudly say my dad always tried to use his fame to effect meaningful change.

  In my dad’s early years with the Vikings, he purchased a home in north Minneapolis when most of his teammates were leaving the inner city for the suburbs. He elected to live in an underprivileged black neighborhood and still lives there today.

  My dad always told me, “Son, you have to give back.” And if you talk to people in north Minneapolis today, you will unquestionably hear a story about how Carl Eller has helped them or someone they know and what it means to have Carl Eller as a part of their community. As caring as he was with the people he tried to help, he was even more so with his children.

  I remember Dad surprised me with tickets to the Twins game. On our way back from the game, a woman ran a red light and hit us directly on my side. The first memory I have of that accident is my dad holding my hand telling me everything was going to be all right. But I could see in his eyes how scared he was for me and how badly he wanted to take my pain away. He didn’t leave my side the night I was in the hospital or for the next two weeks. I’ll never forget that day. It is the day I truly learned of his love for me and he shows the same affection with all his children. He has given me a vision of the caring a father should give his son and a vision of the father I want to be and everyone should have.

  So when I think of who my dad is, I realize he is all these things—the struggling actor, the passionate drug rehab counselor, the good citizen, the consummate father, and, yes, the football player. So, today, if someone asked me, “Aren’t you Carl Eller’s son?” instead of saying, “Yes, but…,” I say, “Yes, yes I am. And my name is Regis.”

  Carl Eller

  I asked a question: “To what do I owe this great honor?” And it’s a good one. What can I do with this great honor of being inducted to the Football Hall of Fame Class of 2004? My answer is that I want to use this platform to help young African American males to participate fully in this society.

  I know that we must give young African American men a message that will lead them in the direction differently where from many of them are headed today. I want that direction to be headed towards the great universities and colleges of our nation, not to the prisons and jail cells.

  African American young men as well as young women must know that they are part of the establishment and not separate from it, that they are part of this great America. They must know that their parents and grandparents and their grandparents’ parents before them helped build this great country. And parents, yes, we do have a great challenge before us—maybe the greatest in history, and that is that we must teach our kids the value and importance of education, teach them to be members of this society, to participate fully, and have a respect for country, laws, and customs. Show them that if they want this country to do the right thing that we must do the right thing and to teach our children to be actively involved in everything that’s going on in this country.

  Barack Obama is a fine young man and a great example. But he is not unique. Contrary to what we see in our media-controlled establishment—we’re in a media-dominated society which has focused on the negative in the African American communities and other communities of color—there are hundreds—if not thousands—Barack Obamas out there.

  We must educate our children, that’s the paramount challenge. Like Bill Cosby says, we must give our children books but first we must know what books to give them. Books that help them understand our economy, books on technological and scientific and biological advancements being made every day. Books on relationships, not just with each other, but on our foreign neighbors. And certainly books on how to participate in our political system.

  Promise, I promise young men and women, and I specifically say again to African American males, because it seems that our country has turned its back on you. And it seems that some areas have even given up hope. I am here today to say I haven’t given up on you. And you need to know because I know that you have the talent, you have the intelligence, and now you have the opportunity to make right of this great occasion, and I’m calling on you now to do the right thing.

  Don’t let all the hard work of your forefathers have done to make this, a great country, go to waste. Young men of African American descent, hear me now. It breaks my heart, and it breaks all of our hearts. This is not the future your forefathers have built for you. This is not the future that we fought for in the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s. What breaks our heart is to see you involved in gangs and selling drugs and killing each other. That breaks our hearts.

  We put our lives on the line so that you could enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy today. We put our lives on the line yesterday so that someone—there could be a Barack Obama today. And there could be a Carl Eller today. And there could be other Hall of Famers sitting before you today.

  So now I stand here and say to you if the future of America is to be strong, you must be strong. You must hear the cries of our forefathers and pick up the fight that has helped to make this country great and helped make it what it is today.

  Know that you are loved and respected and we have high hopes for you—maybe higher than what you imagine. But if this country is to be a winner, you are to be a winner. To be a winner takes two things. Those two things are courage and commitment.

  It takes courage to be a winner. If you have courage, you can overcome, you can conquer fear, and you can conquer despair. And you must be committed to your goals and to your cause. And commitment means being bound to a course of action—spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. These two things separate the winners from the losers. And you must be a winner, not losers.

  And you can tell the winners from the losers. Here’s how you can tell the winners from the losers. The winner is always part of the answer. The loser is always part of the problem. The winner always has a program. The loser always has an excuse. The winner says, “Let me do it for you.” And the loser says, “Uh-uh, it’s not my job.” The winner sees an answer for every problem and the loser sees a problem in every answer. The winner sees a green near every sand trap; the loser sees two or three sand traps near every green. The winner says, “It may be difficult, but it is possible.” And the loser says, “It may be possible, but it’s too difficult.”

  Ladies and gentlemen, young men, young ladies, especially the young men that I’m talking to: Be the winners!

  Harry Carson

  New York Giants Linebacker

  Class of 2006

  A nine-time Pro Bowl selection, Carson is thought to be the first player who ever doused his head coach with Gatorade.

  Presented by His Son, Donald Carson

  When my father first asked me to present him, I said, “Sure,” without hesitating. But as the day got closer, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say. I had so much I wanted to say to you, but they only gave me two minutes to speak, so I kind of wound it down. I thought to myself, I can talk about the fishing trips we went on, me and my brother, many, many fish that we caught, but that would be a lie. We never caught anything. We mainly sat on the boat and caught sunburn. But the time we spent was always great.

  The one thing I can talk about my dad is my dad as a father and as a person. Just thinking back, just about a month ago, we went to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland for my six-month checkup with my illness. It was supposed to be a one-day trip. The doctors didn’t exactly like the progress I was making and decided undergoing another treatment is something I would need to do as soon as possible.

  While sitting there, while the doctors were making their decisions on different things, my dad asked me, “Is there anything from home that you want?” I was like, “No,” not even thinking about it. Then I thou
ght, man, my roommate is out of town. I thought to myself, saying it out loud without thinking, “Man, my fish are going to die.” I didn’t think anything of it.

  But later on that afternoon, it was late, around six or something, my dad jumped in the car, drove from Maryland to Savannah, Georgia, just to feed my fish, which didn’t really mean that much because they were like $2 fish from Walmart. But I don’t know too many people who would do such a thing like that. But my father did. Being the person that he is, that’s the type of thing that he does. He goes out of his way to do things for others when necessarily he doesn’t have to.

  My father always talks to his kids about their needs and wants. So he always says, “Is it a need or is it a want?” He has this thing with hand movements. If it’s a want, you really don’t need it. Then he’ll go into some useless speech we usually don’t listen to, it goes in one ear and out the other. But as I grow older, I’m appreciative to my father for his life lessons that he’s taught me.

  If I ask my father today whether the Hall of Fame is a need or a want, he will probably say it’s not a need, because going to nine Pro Bowls, he was voted by his opposition and the players he played against. That was enough to validate his career. He would say it’s a want. He wouldn’t say it’s a want for him, he would say it’s a want for his family, friends, and fans, because the people want it so dearly for him.

  Thinking about it, I would say he’s right. The Hall of Fame isn’t a need or a want for you, Dad. It’s something that you so deserve.

  Harry Carson

  I had the opportunity to play a fantastic game with fantastic people. When I was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, some people asked me, “Why aren’t you happy about being elected?” Well, I can’t be happy about it until I get one or two things off of my chest, and please indulge me.

  As a Hall of Famer, I want to implore the NFL and its union to look at the product that you have up on this stage. These are great individuals. The honor of making it into the Hall of Fame is great, but it was even greater to have the opportunity to play in a league with eighteen thousand individuals. There are some of the best individuals I’ve ever encountered.

  We’d get on the field and we’d fight tooth and nail, we’d try to knock each other out, then we’d walk off the field, pat each other on the rear end, and say, “Congratulations, hang in there.” I’m extremely proud to have participated in that game with those eighteen thousand individuals.

  I would hope that the leaders of the NFL, the future commissioner, and the player association do a much better job of looking out for those individuals. You got to look out for ’em. If we made the league what it is, you have to take better care of your own….

  I’m not a religious person, but I’m a spiritual person. I feel very strongly that my maker put me in this position for a reason, and that is to represent all of those who preceded me and to represent those who will come after me. I’m told that this bust will be around for a good forty thousand years. That’s a long time.

  I’m looking at my granddaughter here, my nieces, my granddaughter’s children and grandchildren to be able to come to Canton, Ohio, to see what their ancestor did and to know there’s absolutely nothing beyond their reach.

  Warren Moon

  Houston Oilers, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks,

  and Kansas City Chiefs Quarterback

  Class of 2006

  In seventeen seasons, Moon passed for 49,325 yards and 291 touchdowns. He was voted to eight straight Pro Bowls, nine overall.

  Presented by Agent Leigh Steinberg

  In 1978, when Warren Moon was being scouted, a number of NFL personnel strongly suggested to me he would have a better chance for success if he would change his playing position. In certain football circles, there was doubt as to the ability or desirability of an African American to master the high-profile quarterback position with its emphasis on intelligence and leadership. Warren answered that question with steely resolve.

  “Never,” he said. “I was born to play quarterback. No one’s going to stop me from fulfilling my dream.”

  That moment played a critical role in reshaping NFL attitudes and opening the door for future generations. Warren followed his dream to Canada, where his brilliant play on the field led in 1984 to a three-league twelve-team competition for his services that resulted in Houston making him the highest-paid player in the history of the National Football League.

  After seventeen seasons with his dazzling performances on the field—that’s eight straight Pro Bowls—his dignified bearing off the field, Warren’s steely resolve showed the stuff that dreams are made of. He wore number 1 for a reason.

  Here we are, two old Hamilton High grads thirty years later and seventy thousand yards later standing in the shadow of the Hall of Fame. Warren Moon is about to make history as the first African American quarterback in the modern era to enter the Hall of Fame. And because of his courage and perseverance, he won’t be the last.

  From the Rose Bowl to Edmonton to Houston to Minnesota to Seattle to Kansas City to our office in Newport Beach, I’ve been honored to walk the road and dream the dream with you.

  Warren Moon

  Football for me has been a journey. It was a journey that started forty-four years ago for me, playing at Baldwin Hills Community Park in the Pop Warner Association at ten years old.

  I played on some teams that were very, very talented, or either we had coaches that just didn’t understand personnel. On my first team there, I played with another guy who is a member of the Hall of Fame, James Lofton. We were both on the same team together, James being a defensive end and me being a linebacker. That tells you what kind of talent we had on our team, or that tells you our coaches just didn’t know what the heck they were doing.

  A lot has been said about me as being the first African American quarterback in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s a subject that I’m very uncomfortable about sometimes only because I’ve always wanted to be judged as just a quarterback. But because I am the first, and because significance does come with that, I accept that. I accept the fact that I am the first. But I also remember all the guys before me who blazed that trail to give me the inspiration and the motivation to keep going forward, like Willie Thrower, the first black quarterback to play in an NFL game; like Marlin Briscoe, who is here today, the first to start in an NFL game; like James Harris, who is here today, the first to lead his teams to the playoffs. Then on into my era with Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to go to the Super Bowl and be Most Valuable Player; like Randall Cunningham, one of the most exciting players during our era; like Vince Evans, who played twenty-plus years of professional football. All of us did what we had to do to make the game a little bit better for the guys coming after us.

  I played this game not for just myself, not just for my teammates, but I always had that extra burden when I went on that field that I had a responsibility to play the game for my people. That extra burden I probably didn’t need to go out on the field with, because I probably would have been a much better player if I didn’t have that burden. But you know what, I carried that burden proudly.

  As I looked at young people all along my route as a professional football player, they always told me, “Warren, you got to represent. Warren, you got to represent. Warren, you got to represent.” Well, I’m standing here to say that, “I hope I did represent while I played in the National Football League.”

  I have four of the best kids I think that any father could ever ask for. They are all in college. They’re all very polite. They’re all very good-looking. I think they’re all going to be very successful. But the thing I love about them the most is, as a father, as a professional football player, it takes you away from home a lot. You miss a lot of things. As I moved around the National Football League, my family stayed in Houston. So I missed out on a lot of things in their lives. Those are things that I can never get back.

  But I always ask them, “How do you feel about me
going here to play?” They always told me, “Dad, just follow your dream.” I want to thank you all for letting me follow my dream.

  CHAPTER 8

  MENTORS

  NOBODY SETS OUT TO BE A MENTOR, BUT FEW JOBS are more important.

  The best mentors are the most patient, the most experienced, the most giving of their time. Often they are not paid for their efforts, not if they are parents or friends. But the payoff can turn out to be greater than anyone imagines. Molding a young life, or really any life, in a way it was not shaped before is reward enough.

  Ultimately, mentors know what their pupils don’t, at least not right away: Nobody can reach a final destination without first being shown the way.

  Steve Largent

  Seattle Seahawks Wide Receiver

  Class of 1995

  Largent caught 819 passes for 13,089 yards and one hundred touchdowns. At one point, Largent caught at least one pass in 177 straight games.

  Presented by Seahawks Vice President Gary Wright

  In 1976, Steve drove along the highway from Houston to Oklahoma City after being cut by the Oilers. It looked like his professional career was over before it had begun. But a magical fourteen-year detour in Seattle has brought him here to Canton, Ohio, where he belongs. Steve Largent has left a legacy not of numbers, records, and honors. Records and honors can be broken, but the spirit and standard he set will always, always live.