The Sports Xchange

CANTON, Ohio — On a glorious summer night in the birthplace of the National Football League, six players and two contributors had their busts unveiled and joined 287 others in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The theme of this year’s class can easily be termed “Ending the Wait.”

Wide receiver Tim Brown and defensive end Charles Haley were elected in their sixth year as finalists, followed by running back Jerome Bettis (five) and guard Will Shields (four). Center Mick Tingelhoff, 75, was never a finalist in his 20 years as a candidate before entering the seniors’ field in 2003.

Former general managers Bill Polian, 72, and Ron Wolf, 76, enter the Hall in the first year of the new contributors category that considers them separate from modern-day players. Linebacker Junior Seau is the only first-time eligible player selected.

As Brown said before induction weekend, “The hardest part of this is managing extra patience with the people around you. So when you don’t make it, people want to know, well, why didn’t you make it? That’s the difficult part. You don’t have the answers to it. It’s a gut-wrenching process.”

But the process and long wait is largely forgotten now that the gold jackets have been fitted and the busts shown to the world.

The night is always special and was captured by Wolf when he opened the speeches by saying, “As my friend (country singer) Kenny Chesney so happily sings, ‘This is our moment, this is our time. This is our destiny. It’s our night to shine.'”

And shine they did.

Brown played in 255 games over 17 seasons with the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ending his career in 2004. He finished his career with 1,094 receptions for 14,934 yards and 100 touchdowns.

Haley played 12 seasons and 169 games with the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, and is the only player in league history to own five Super Bowl rings. His final season was 1996 and he ended his career with 100.5 sacks.

Presenting Haley was Ed DeBartolo Jr., the fifth presentation by the former 49ers owner, tying him with Tom Landry, Don Shula and Paul Brown for the second most in Hall history behind only Al Davis, who did nine as owner of the Raiders.

Haley was impassioned with his story-telling, especially when he acknowledged being diagnosed with manic depression by his ex-wife Karen but not wanting to accept it.

“I thought she was just like the group of guys that wanted to always put me in this box,” he said. “So we had problems after that, and I never really listened, nor did I step up to the plate and do something about it. My life spiraled out of control for years, for years.

“But today, I am getting back into the locker room, to my teammates, and tell them the mistakes that I’ve made, and that the only way that you can grow is that you’ve got to ask for help.

“I walked into the league a 22-year-old man with a 16-year-old inside of me screaming for help, and I would not ask for it. I would not ask for that help. But today, I take my medicine every day, and that’s because I finally listened.”

Bettis fittingly arrived in Canton by bus, the nickname he quickly acquired after being traded by the St. Louis Rams to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1996. In 13 seasons and 192 games, the 5-foot-11, 243-pound Bettis rushed for 13,662 yards, which at the time of his retirement after the 2005 season ranked him fifth all time. He is currently sixth.

Shields played all 224 games of his 14-season career with the Kansas City Chiefs. He never missed a game, and the only game he didn’t start was the first one of his rookie season in 1993. He was named to the Pro Bowl 12 consecutive seasons.

Tingelhoff, like Shields, played his entire career with one team, the Minnesota Vikings. An undrafted free agent in 1962, Tingelhoff started the season opener of his rookie year and never missed a start in an exemplary career spanning 17 seasons and 240 games.

Seau, who took his own life on May 2, 2012, at age 43, played a remarkable 20 seasons and 268 games with the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots. Like Shields, he was selected to play in 12 Pro Bowls, and totaled 56.5 sacks.

In total, the six players played a combined 93 seasons and 1,248 games.

Polian led the front office of the Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts, and those teams went to eight conference championship games during his tenure. He was named NFL Executive of the Year six times by The Sporting News.

Wolf is best known for his work as the player personnel director for the Oakland Raiders and general manager of the Green Bay Packers.

He engineered the trade that brought quarterback Brett Favre to the Packers in 1992 and convinced defensive end Reggie White to sign with the Packers as a free agent in 1993, which eventually brought the franchise back to prominence after a stretch of 25 seasons with just two playoff appearances, including 10 straight non-playoff years that ended in 1993 with Favre at quarterback. Favre will be a first-time eligible for the next Hall-of-Fame class.

As Wolf’s son Eliot said in his presentation, “My dad would always say Favre was the type of player who would tilt the field in favor of his team.”