Schuster: Busy Day At Pro Football Hall Of Fame
By DAVID SCHUSTER
CANTON, Ohio (CBS) -- Busy day here at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Early in the morning they had the groundbreaking for the expansion of the Hall that will be completed in about 2 years. Then they held the formal ceremony for the signing of the new collective bargaining agreement. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Union Chief DeMaurice Smith both signed the 300 page agreement and then talked about it on the NFL Network. Of course they did. That's an extension of the NFL and paid property of the league.
But what about the rest of the media? There were only about six of us in attendance. Could they just take about 2 minutes each to answer the same questions that were lobbed at them minutes ago? Of course not. These are two busy men who had to run off and act busy elsewhere. Real classy guys. Real classy.
Richard Dent will be enshrined in tha Hall tomorrow and he was all smiles when we shook hands this morning, and why not? This is a day that he has been looking forward to for a long long time. Dent had been snubbed in earlier Hall votes but finally got in this year. His credentials are certainly Hall worthy. He played 15 years in the league and was a Pro Bowl player 4 times. He recorded 10 or more sacks in a season on 8 different occasions and led the NFC with 17 and a half in 1984. He finished his career with 137 and a half sacks and was the MVP of Super Bowl 20, the year the Bears won it all.
Dent obviously played on a team full of great players with guys like Walter Payton, Mike Singletary, Dan Hampton and Jim McMahon but there's no question he deserves to be in the Hall and his smile today said it all.
Joining Dent in the Hall this year are Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Shannon Sharpe and Chris Hanberger. And also going in is Ed Sabol, the man behind the idea of NFL Films.
