When he learned the news via phone call, Sanders was at a charity event at Lancaster Recreation Park, having spent most of the day coaching youth football games against squads coached by rapper Snoop Dogg.
The Hall’s 44-member panel voted in the maximum-allowed seven of the 17 finalists. Among the bypassed were Dallas native Tim Brown and former Cowboys defensive end Charles Haley . Sanders, meanwhile, hurried to the Sheraton Hotel Dallas, where the Class of 2011 was announced on the NFL Network.
“Nervous? No, I wasn’t,” he said with a smile. “I was more nervous about playing against Snoop Dogg. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I am grateful.”
Sanders had no reason to wonder about his Hall chances. As perhaps the greatest shutdown cornerback ever and an electrifying talent who scored 19 career touchdowns in a record six different ways, he was a lock. The main question Saturday was whether he would be a first-ballot inductee.
“I’m excited, are you kidding me?” he said, after taking the stage and hugging fellow Class of 2011 members Marshall Faulk and Shannon Sharpe. “It’s unbelievable. It’s hard to describe the feeling.”
Also voted in were Bears defensive end Richard Dent, contributor Ed Sabol of NFL Films and senior committee nominees Chris Hanburger of the Redskins and Les Richter of the Los Angeles Rams.
Saturday’s voting process took more than seven hours. The first step was shaving the 15 modern-day finalists to a list of 10. Brown and Haley were among those who didn’t make the final 10.
The other perhaps disappointing news for Raiders standout Brown, a Woodrow Wilson graduate, is that fellow receivers Cris Carter and Andre Reed also failed to be voted in Saturday, so a longstanding logjam remains at that position.
Like Brown, Haley was in his second go-round as a finalist. But for Haley, the only player with five Super Bowl rings, the potential good news is that the election of Super Bowl XX MVP Dent means next year’s ballot will have one less standout pass rusher.
As is the case each year, the announcement produced poignant moments. There was NFL Films president Steve Sabol taking the stage to represent his 95-year-old father Ed, who created NFL Films in the early 1960s.
There was former Rams and Colts running back Faulk becoming choked up when asked whether he had spoken to his mother since receiving the news.
“There’s guys in this Hall of Fame that I look so far up to,” Faulk said. “I never thought I would be in the same room as them.”
Most emotional was former Broncos and Ravens tight end Sharpe. He spoke of how much he looked up to older brother Sterling, whose NFL career was cut short by a neck injury. Shannon also spoke of his 88-year-old grandmother, who was instrumental in raising him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Sharpe said. “All the work that I did, got up this morning and worked out again and took four showers, told my sister I was going to take a nap . . . . but I couldn’t sleep.
“All I could think about was whether it was going to happen today.”
When he failed to get voted in two years ago, his grandmother had had her leg amputated and suffered a heart attack. She is in a nursing home, the same one in which she worked while raising him.
“All I wanted to do was make her proud,” Sharpe said. “I said, ‘She’s never going to hear me thank her, give a speech and say, ‘Granny, thanks for everything that I am. The man that people see today comes from you.’ ’
“I don’t know what I did to deserve this. . . . If I had a thousand tongues, I couldn’t say how happy I am and proud I am at this moment.”
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