A Final HOF Fling … Monday Cup O’Chiefs

From the Lamar Hunt Super Bowl Gallery opening to the long-overdue induction of Derrick Thomas there was a Kansas City feel everywhere in the middle of Ohio.

But the boys are still in the northwoods, pulling together the team for the 2009 season, and after this screed, we will return to giving you the best camp coverage around. Check us out late Monday morning with a practice update

Until then, we’ve got some other tidbits, stories and notes from a whirlwind weekend in Canton.

– Somebody at the Pro Football Hall of Fame has a lot of pull.

Or maybe it was the fact that so many members of the Hall now watch the annual induction ceremonies from the ultimate skybox.

All day Saturday, rain fell on Canton. It wasn’t a heavy rain, just a constant drip, drip, drip that had everyone scrambling for umbrellas and ponchos to take to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Fawcett Stadium. There wasn’t any chance the rain was going to cancel things; it was just going to make the crowd very wet and uncomfortable.

And then, just minutes before the ceremony started, the sun came out for the first time that day. The clouds parted and the setting sun lit up the western sky and almost as if on cue, the induction ceremony started.

That my friend is the power of football.

– Just like all the other events surrounding the NFL, the Hall of Fame weekend just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I was trying to recall the first time I was in Canton for an induction ceremony and I think it had to be sometime in the 1980s. Then, the induction speeches were held on the front steps of the Hall of Fame, which is smack up against I-77. With all the speeches you could hear the traffic flying past. Sometimes the traffic became part of the atmosphere, especially when some of those Steelers from the great teams in the 1970s were inducted and the Terrible Towel Nation showed up in great numbers.

People used to sit in folding chairs in the small triangle area around the steps and the ceremony took place in early afternoon, usually under a broiling sun. It wasn’t on live TV and after the busts were awarded, everybody went their separate ways. Sometimes a group would go to lunch together.

Now, it’s an event. The ceremonies moved inside Fawcett Stadium, which is right next to the Hall. It’s a high school football stadium that is renovated a little bit more each year to make it a suitable site for Sunday night’s Hall of Fame pre-season game. The sound of traffic is blocked by the giant stage where the Hall of Famers sit during the ceremony. And now it’s done at night, and as usual television runs the show. When the ceremony is over, the parties start and they are now held in big tents right on the grounds of the Hall.

– Sharron Hunt Munson had a great story to tell about the day her father was inducted back in 1972. Sharron was just a kid at the time and they got up that morning and took part in the Hall of Fame parade through the streets of Canton. Afterwards, they went back to the hotel where Lamar insisted his daughter take a nap before they went to the ceremony. “This was one of the biggest days of his life and he was worried about me getting tired,” Sharron said. “That was my Dad.”

– One story I did not know: after D.T.’s auto accident and his move to a Miami hospital he had many visitors in the days before he passed away. One was a fellow member of the class of 2009, Bruce Smith.

“I went down there to see him and when I got there, he was trying out this wheelchair and he was racing down the hall and he still had that big smile on his face,” Smith said Friday at the Nitschke Luncheon. “But it just broke my heart to see him that way. We had a good visit and then a couple days later, he was gone. I still can’t believe that.

“I miss him.”

– After the ceremony was over, the guy walking on air was Carl Peterson. The Chiefs former President-GM did a very good job with his presentation speech, but there was some anxiety in preparation. Lori Peterson said her husband asked her to leave their hotel room Saturday afternoon so he could practice his speech alone. “He said go to a museum, go somewhere, just go,” Lori said.

– Former Chiefs head coach Paul Wiggin and his wife Carolyn were in Canton. Wiggin has “retired” from the personnel department of the Vikings. He still works as a “consultant, whatever that means,” Wiggin said. They were there to celebrate Randall McDaniel’s enshrinement; McDaniel played most of his career with the Vikings. There are few finer men in the game of football than Paul Wiggin. There are few finer men anywhere than Wig.

– OK, so I found myself agreeing with Jason Whitlock and that really scared me. In his column from Canton that appears in Sunday’s Kansas City Star, he called D.T.’s the equivalent of the Chiefs Lombardi Trophy for the success of the 1990s. The team never got a chance to play for the real Lombardi Trophy, let alone touch one, despite a decade with over 100 victories and seven trips to the playoff. So the achievement of the catalyst behind those teams making the Hall of Fame will have to do as recognition of the second most successful era in franchise history.

– Here’s a gossip tidbit for you. Former Chiefs K Nick Lowery showed up for the induction ceremony from his home in Arizona. He brought a date. Now, generally those that got to know Lowery during his time kicking for the Chiefs know that he tended to date women much younger than himself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it just seemed his dates always had a curfew and homework to get done.

Well Lowery showed up in Canton with a young lady named Jessi Colter. If you are a country music fan, let me tell you that yes, it was that Jessi Colter, the widow of country music legend Waylon Jennings.

But natch, here’s the kicker: Jessi’s looking pretty good for being 62 years old. That’s nine years older than Nick the Kick!

There’s your gossip fix for the year.

– So who is the next Chiefs player to be honored with a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

Now remember that players do not go in as members of a certain franchise; they go into the Hall as members of a class. Derrick Thomas’ bust will be displayed with the other members of his class, not with the previous members of the Chiefs who earned enshrinement.

No matter that, the next player who spent time with the Chiefs to go in will probably be Willie Roaf. While he will gain induction due to his career in New Orleans far more than Kansas City, he’s the next guy to have a legitimate shot. Roaf comes due in 2011.

The next year Will Shields will become eligible. Of course, some time in the future Tony Gonzalez will also find his way to Canton.

The Seniors Committee of the Board of Selectors will meet in several weeks to pick two candidates for induction in 2010. That’s how both Hank Stram (2003) and Emmitt Thomas (2008) found their way to the Hall. Their honors make the odds very slim that another member of the Chiefs organization will be put up for possible induction any time soon.

But the names that still float through the seniors committee are Otis Taylor, Ed Budde, Johnny Robinson and Jim Tyrer.

– That new Detroit Lions head coach Jim Schwartz is a helluva guy. His defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham needed to be at D.T.’s induction ceremony. Those two shared a special bond; the whole Cunningham family viewed Derrick as part of them.

But Cunningham is now Schwartz’s defensive coordinator with the Lions and of course they are in training camp. Gunther wasn’t going to leave his current team to honor his former player, until Schwartz insisted. The head coach told his coordinator in no uncertain terms that he was going to Canton.

So a member of the Lions front office drove Gun to Canton and back, a round trip of approximately 400 miles.

– Of the five players inducted on Saturday, D.T. was the only one who played his whole career for one team. The others – Randall McDaniel, Rod Woodson, Bob Hayes and Bruce Smith – all finished their time in the NFL with teams that were not the franchise they started with.

Of course, Thomas’ career ended early because of his death. What would have happened if he lived? Could D.T. have worn the uniform of another team? Would he had pulled a Neil Smith and gone to the Broncos? How about Thomas finishing up with the silver and black?

“Rest assured, I can’t imagine any way something like that would have happened,” said Carl Peterson.

 

BRONCOS – placed DL J’Vonne Parker on the injured reserve list (knee).

BROWNS – lost WR Syndric Steptoe for the seasons with a shoulder injury; signed OL Fred Weary (Texans).

FALCONS – signed WR Roddy White to a new contract, ending his holdout.

RAMS – WWR Donnie Avery suffered a foot injury during a Friday practice and should be out four to six weeks.

TEXANS – placed RB Jeremiah Johnson on the injured-reserve list (shoulder).

 

On August 10, 1991 the Chiefs beat the New York Jets 19-10 in a pre-season game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. With a crowd of 52,935 watching, the Chiefs saw QB Mark Vlasic and WR Tim Barnett hook up for a pair of scores from 30 and 77 yards. The Chiefs also got a safety when the Jets illegally batted a fumble in the end zone and there was a 44-yard FG from K Nick Lowery. Barnett finished the game with five catches for 127 yards. The Chiefs defense had three interceptions and four sacks of New York quarterbacks.

 

Born on August 10, 1959 in San Jose, California was DL Kit Lathrop. He joined the Chiefs for the 1986 season out of the USFL, where he played for the Chicago Blitz (1983), Arizona Wranglers (1984) and Arizona Outlaws (1985). Lathrop played in 16 games that one season with the Chiefs; he played the next season with the Washington Redskins.