Two former members
of the Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys, Deion Sanders and Russell Maryland, are
among 14 players and coaches making up the 2011 NCAA Football Hall of Fame
class.
Ohio State running
back Eddie George and Michigan coach Lloyd Carr will join the former Dallas
greats this Saturday for the Enshrinement Festival at the hall located in South
Bend, Ind. The new members will be inducted
at a December banquet in New York and then officially enshrined in the summer of 2012.
Deion Sanders, who lived
up to his nickname “Prime Time”, starred collegiately at Florida State where he
was a two-time All-American and Thorpe Award winner as the nation’s top
defensive back, will be honored in 2011. He had 14 career interceptions and brought four of them back to
the house for a school record that still stands. Sanders was part of a Seminole
team that won four straight bowl games and finished in the Top 5 in
back-to-back years on the Associated Press rankings.
As good as a
defender as Sanders was he was an even better punt returner. He still holds FSU
records for return yardage and punt return touchdowns.
Prime Time in the NFL
Sanders who is also
a 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee spent 14 years in the NFL playing for
the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins
and Baltimore Ravens.
Wait, there’s more
Prime Time also
enjoyed a nine-year Major League Baseball career playing for the Yankees,
Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. He remains the
only player in sports history to have been part of both a Super Bowl team and also a World Series team. He’s now a studio host and analyst for the
NFL Network.
Bruising Buckeye
Eddie George’s
inclusion into this year’s class is one of the few bright spots for Ohio State
football this season and he’s arguably the best running back ever to play at
OSU. His personal high water mark
came in 1995 when he captured the Heisman Trophy after rushing for 1,927 yards
including 314 against Illinois a single-game record that still stands. He finished
his collegiate career as OSU’s second all-time rusher with 3,768 yards and also
had 44 touchdowns. George still owns several school records including 100-yard
games (20) and 200-yard games (5).
George’s NFL career
was equally good. He was rookie of the year in 1996 and went on to compile career
totals that included 10,441 rushing yards, 268 receptions, 2,227 receiving
yards, and 78 touchdowns all while playing for the Tennessee Titans. Perhaps
the most impressive stat on George’s resume is sharing the title with Jim Brown
as the only 10,000 yard runners in NFL history to never miss a start.
Lloyd Carr
Carr retired after
the 2007 season after 13 years in Ann Arbor where he guided Michigan to a
record of 122-40 including a 1997 national championship. During his 13-year tenure
the Wolverines were ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 for all but nine
games. One of the memorable quotes from Carr came after losing in the Rose
Bowl: “An old poet said, 'It's better to
go to the Rose Bowl and lose than not to have gotten there at all.' In all
Carr got to the Rose Bowl four times, going 1-3.
The other coach on
this year’s list of inductees is former Air Force mentor Fisher DeBerry who won
169 games in 23 seasons. DeBerry was named coach of the year in the WAC
three times and won the NCAA honor in 1985.
Here’s the
remainder of this year’s Hall of Famers;
Carlos Alvarez (WR,
Florida)
Doug English (DL, Texas)
Bill Enyart (FB, Oregon State)
Marty Lyons (DL, Alabama)
Russell Maryland (DL, Miami)
Jake Scott (DB, Georgia)
Will Shields (G,
Nebraska)
Sandy Stephens (QB,
Minnesota)
Darryl Talley (LB, West Virginia)
Clendon Thomas (HB, Oklahoma)
Rob Waldrop (DL, Arizona)
Gene Washington (WR, Michigan State
To be eligible,
players must be 10 years removed from their college careers and must have been
named first-team All-Americans.