CANTON — The biggest crowd I can remember at a Pro Football Hall of Fame dinner hit the bar around 5 o’clock and hit the jackpot a little after 9 Friday night.
A record 120 returning enshrinees, including Cleveland favorite Joe Thomas, closed the show by parading one by one into Memorial Civic Center.
New Orleans is a thousand miles from Canton, but a huge contingent of Saints fans flew in and went wild when a spotlight hit Class of 2026 star Drew Brees.
The former Purdue quarterback made his way through a gauntlet of Hall of Famers including fellow QBs Jim Kelly, Warren Moon, Kurt Warner and Steve Young. Finally, he ascended a ramp to a center stage, with Joe Montana right behind him.
Brees pulled off his dinner jacket and handed it to Montana, who helped him into one of the gold jackets that have become Canton calling cards.
Brees and Montana locked in a monster hand shake and looked at each other as if to say, “Pinch me. Is this a dream?”
Roger Craig, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri followed Brees to their gold jackets, floating on air into an early wakeup call for Saturday’s parade. It will be followed by their enshrinement at noon in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
I’ve written as an eyewitness to Pro Football Hall of Fame week for 50 years.
It’s funny what you remember.
On this night, I worked from a seat in a section reserved for wives and family members of the swarm of returning enshrinees.
I wound up next to the wife of Ron Wolf, former Green Bay Packers general manager, Class of 2015.
During dinner, a Canton Symphony Orchestra ensemble played the Cleveland Browns theme song. Edie Wolf chuckled about how long her husband worked as a Browns consultant in 2004. “Not very long.”
Dinner, costing $200, was a sellout. Admission to just the program, emceed by Rich Eisen and with Dan Fouts at the microphone when the Hall of Famers paraded in, was $100.
Before the Class of 2026 ate in the 4,000-seat Civic Center auditorium, the “five guys” were led to various side rooms, likewise packed to capacity.
This is one of the busier enshrinement weeks in terms of crowds, for reasons starting with Brees.
After dinner, the side rooms cleared into the auditorium, which was as full as I’ve ever seen it for what used to be called the Enshrinees Civic Dinner.
The program is always nice, but the people-watching at the outdoor cocktail hour and the pre-dinner hubbub often is more interesting.
The Class of 2026 was led from room to room to bask in one standing ovation after another.
It was a fairly long walk to the farthest auxiliary room, and the nicest — the Great Court, outside the Canton Art Museum.
It was full of enshrinees’ family and friends, teeming with Hall of Fame tradition.
I worked that room for the first time when I was assigned to the enshrinement dinner in 1976.
I recall Canton legend Marion Motley enjoying a cigar and an adult beverage there. Next to a Pegasus sculpture, I met Class of 1964 enshrinee Ed Healey, a wonderful man who laughed at my youth and spouted tales of facing the 1920s Canton Bulldogs.
The centerpiece of the room was and is the mythical horse Pegasus.
Brees’ entourage was a 15-yard pass from the outstretched wings of the steed.
He was in his 10th NFL season when a college basketball player named Jimmy Graham joined the Saints as a project tight end. With Brees as his mentor, Graham caught 99 passes in his second season on a team that went 13-3.
Graham politely rose to shake my hand as I asked why it was important to fly to Canton to support an ex-teammate.
“He’s Drew Brees, enough said,” Graham said. “I was a young player who had a lot to learn. He was more gracious than you can imagine in teaching me everything I could have wanted to know.”
As dinner was served, the Class of 2026 was turned loose for 10 minutes to extend personal greetings to family and friends in the Great Court.
Graham occupied Table 384, in company with two other ex-Saints teammates there for Brees, Malcolm Jenkins and Troy Evans.
Graham, who will turn 40 in November, remains an imposing physical specimen. He is more than half a foot taller than Brees.
“It worked out well,” Graham said. “The first guy the short quarterback is going to see is the tall receiver.”
Brees put a prodigious bear hug on Graham when he reached Table 384.
Kuechly greeted his entourage on the other side of Pegasus.
“It’s been a ton of fun,” the former Cincinnati St. Xavier High School linebacker said when he came up for air between hugs. “This is pretty awesome.”
The Hall of Fame came under fire in February when it became clear the Class of 2026 would not include Bill Belichick.
The snub of a head coach who went to nine Super Bowls clearly tainted the election.
It had zero visible effect on the Gold Jacket Dinner.
The crowds and the reactions to Belichick when he makes the Class of 2027 will be a source of great fascination. The 2026 show went on without him.
Emcee Rich Eisen kept it light.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gave the Hall of Fame City heavy praise.
A record 185 enshrinees were represented by themselves or a surviving family member.
Fouts seems to like it here. Some of my family members attended a Jefferson Starship concert at Stadium Park Wednesday. They randomly wound up standing in an area next to Fouts (Hall of Fame Class of 1993) and James Lofton (Hall of Fame Class of 2003).
At the dinner, Fouts introduced the returning enshrinees as if they’re walking in for a cold one.
Dwight Freeney made a spin move after Fouts called him to the stage. Larry Csonka, the ex-Stow Bulldog who played for the Dolphins’ unbeaten 1972 team, doesn’t have any moves left, but he got a huge cheer. Warren Sapp did a little dance.
Hall of Famers Paul Warfield, Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, “Mean Joe” Greene, Antonio Gates, Willie Roaf, Orlando Pace and Emmitt Smith were among the returnees drawing elevated cheers.
A roar went up when Jerry Rice was called to the stage. He has more receiving yards than anyone in NFL history. Fitzgerald, who is No. 2, is enshrined into the Hall of Fame on Saturday.
If the dinner was any sign, this enshrinement will attract one of the bigger crowds Canton has seen. In the wake of the Belichick hiccup, these are good signs for the Hall of Fame.
Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
This article originally appeared on The Repository: New Orleans invades Canton, Joe Montana plants gold jacket on Drew Brees
Reporting by Steve Doerschuk, Canton Repository / The Repository
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Steve Doerschuk, Canton Repository | USA TODAY Network
