NFL greats Troy Aikman and the late Reggie White
headlined a full class of six inductees into this year's Pro Football
Hall of Fame that was announced last February. It was called the most
emotional announcement of a Pro Football Hall of Fame class in history.
The formal induction ceremony of the class into the Hall of Fame will
be on August 5.
The other members of this year's class are Harry
Carson, John Madden, Warren Moon and Rayfield Wright. With six people
being inducted this year, this class is also the biggest ever inducted
since 2001.
Aikman was once renowned as the NFL's golden boy and
one of the greatest quarterbacks of his era. He led the Dallas Cowboys
to three Super Bowl titles in the 1990s. Today, Aikman is a television
sportscaster for the Fox network and a joint owner of the NASCAR Nextel
Cup racing team, Hall of Fame Racing, along with fellow former Cowboys
quarterback, Roger Staubach.
White, nicknamed the "Minister of
Defense," was one of football's most prolific sackers ever, either in
college, the USFL and the NFL.. White also earned his nickname as
reference to his Evangelical Christian ordination. He died suddenly in
2004 after suffering a fatal cardiac arrhythmia caused by the
sarcoidosis he had lived with for years. During the 2005 season, three
teams retired White's number 92 jersey.
Moon became the first
African-American quarterback to ever be inducted into the Pro Football
Hall of Fame. Before him, no other African-American quarterback even
got close to induction. Aikman and Moon followed Dan Marino, Steve
Young and John Elway in a string of great quarterbacks to make the Hall
in their first tries.
"To be the first African-American
quarterback into the Hall of Fame, all African-American QBs who played
before me should share in this," Moon said. "I don't want to make this
a racial thing, but I think it is significant. It shows that we have
arrived at the pinnacle of our sport."
And, of course, there is
Madden, the coach-broadcaster-video game entrepreneur who holds the
record for the best winning percentage of any NFL coach with 100
victories (.759). He coached the Oakland Raiders for 10 years and won
the 1977 Super Bowl.
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