Ex-Browns among record number of Hall of Famers at dinner. Who drew biggest ovation?

Posted by Admin August 3, 2024 NFL

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CANTON — The old Ohio State guy pulling on his new enshrinee coat never did know how to take accolades.

Way back when, at rural Champion High School north of Warren, Randy Gradishar was embarrassed by attention.

At this stage of the game, at the Enshrinees Gold Jacket Dinner on Friday night, Gradishar was appreciative but not overwhelmed to be part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024, along with younger former NFL stars Dwight Freeney, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, Julius Peppers and Patrick Willis.

All of them drew standing ovations as they came up for their jackets the night before Saturday’s enshrinement (noon start). Fellow Class of 2024 enshrinee Steve McMichael, ill with ALS (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”), was represented by his vibrant wife, Misty.

Gradishar, who in adulthood has lived where he played in the NFL, Colorado, made a confession. Visiting Canton was like an exciting tour of a foreign country.

“I lived 40 miles away, but from the time I was growing up to the time I went to Ohio State, I was never in Canton,” he said. “I feel like a little kid again, going around town, looking at all the buildings for the first time.”

The Gold Jacket extravaganza, with its cocktail hour, fancy food, speech by Roger Goodell, emceeing by Rich Eisen, Hollywood production approach, shout to audience member Chris Berman, and crowd in the thousands, was capped by “the gauntlet.”

As each Class of 2024 member was summoned for his Hall of Fame gold jacket, his path to the stage went through returning Hall of Famers — Hall President Jim Porter said it was a record number, well past 100.

Hall of Famer Dan Fouts, a smooth talker, introduced each returnee. All of them drew warm ovations. Ex-Ohio State Buckeye/Cleveland Brown Paul Warfield, who is from Gradishar’s neck of the woods, got a big one.

Audience reactions up there with Warfield’s went to”Mean” Joe Greene, Orlando Pace, Deion Sanders, Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher, Joe DeLamielleure, Larry Csonka, Emmitt Smith and Jerome Bettis.

Joe Thomas, enshrined last year, would have drawn the biggest cheer, but that ex-Brown is busy coaching football in Europe.

The Gold Jacket Dinner went down, as it always has — including the many years it was called Enshrinees Civic Dinner — in Memorial Civic Center.

The venue opened in 1951, a year before Gradishar was born.

It’s open season on speculation as to how many years the old place can do justice to enshrinement week events, but with the house lights down, spotlights roaming, and football celebrities all around, it always manages to generate a grand feel.

There’s “more Canton” in Canton’s big week these days, not counting the annual Saturday parade, which always steps off downtown .

Enshrinees are staying just south of Central Plaza at the DoubleTree Hotel, as they have for a few years since a renovation.

For the first time, the men in town to be enshrined visited The Canton Repository, conducting media interviews a mile down Market Avenue before the dinner.

The Repository lobby, huge and ornate, reflects the golden age of newspapers.

The oak in the lawn outside the building is so massive and mysterious as to make one wonder if it dates to Adam and Eve.

There is no doubt it dates to Ida and Bill. Former President William McKinley and his wife are entombed on a hill a mile and a half away (Ida’s old house is much closer, now known as the National First Ladies Museum).

It is a witness tree, privvy to the secrets of what Canton looked, smelled and sounded like when the National Football League was born here.

The oiginal meeting was in a car dealership a short walk from the oak. History pages say it smelled like cigars and sounded like the voices of men who had tipped a few.

Playing at a stadium on Meyers Lake, the Canton Bulldogs went 12-6-5 across their first two seasons, 1920 and 1921, won the NFL championships of 1922 and 1923 with a combined 21-0-3 mark, and folded after the 1926 campaign.

Incorporating old Canton into Enshrinement Week seems to strike at least some sense of history into the younger Class of 2024 members.

“It’s an amazing journey,” said the 39-year-old Patrick Willis.

“Soaking it in like this, you start to realize where you are,” said Dwight Feeney, 44.

The Hall of Fame is in Canton partly because long-ago Repository people, notably Jemaine Swanson, pushed for it. A famous 1959 article written by Chuck Such and calling for such a museum — opening day was in 1963 — hangs on a newsroom wall.

The Class of 2024 seemed to enjoy hanging out at the gold jacket dinner.

It was among the things that make up Hall of Fame week via the endless stream of volunteers. They might make a joke fit for past, current and future enshrinees.

“We’ll be here all century.”

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com