Wednesday, May 8, 2013

NFF Hall of Fame Announcement Continued

As I said yet another great class of great college football players and coaches will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and this class will be the first to be enshrined in the bran new Hall building being erected in Atlanta with an August 2014 opening date.
It is hard to get two better representatives for an incoming class of Hall of Famers than Tedy Bruschi and Danny Wuerffel, who were both in attendance yesterday at the announcing ceremony at the NASDAQ building in Times Square.  Both of course mentioned that the Hall vote was a great honor.  Bruschi talked about being a freshman in high school and seeing some friends sitting in a group waiting.  He asked them about it and they mentioned football tryouts and that he should join them.  He did, despite having never played organized football and being more suited then for the band, and fortunately received some great coaching.  Bruschi first day of practice with pads was somewhat humorous as everyone split into groups and he did not know where to go.  A coach took one look at him and sent him to the linemen group and that proved to be a good decision.  At Arizona he became an AA defensive end despite being overlooked as a recruit.  Bruschi praised coach Dick Tomey as a needed father figure and mentioned that the group that became the Desert Swarm defense used a sense of being disrespected as recruits into the needed chip on their shoulders that helped them achieve a high level of play.
Wuerffel talked about how in synch he was to the vision that coach Steve Spurrier wanted in a QB.  Wuerffel greatest strength may have been that he processed everything Spurrier threw at the QBs at a quick pace.  A fellow reporter forced the modest Wuerffel to admit that he was a tough SOB and his ability to get up after continued hits in games like the loss to FSU in the 1996 regular season endeared him forever to Gator fans.  Being able to avenge that loss and the previous year's loss in the de facto national title contest with Nebraska was a great way to end his college career.
In December I will get to hear from the rest of the group, including a representative for the late Rod Shoate.  I look forward to it.

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