What good is induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame if the inductee can't enjoy or even understand it? Cleveland Browns guard Gene Hickerson
had to wait 29 years for his name to be called for the Hall. And in that 29 years, he went from a dominant guard to a 72-year-old man with dementia that can't finish a sentence.
I'll be honest with you ... when I watched the NFL's Hall of Fame ceremonies on Sunday, I wasn't concerned in the least bit with Gene Hickerson. I was only familiar with his name in connection with his Hall candidacy and because of FanHouse colleague
MDS's post about him. I was more concerned with Art Monk, Michael Irvin, Bruce Matthews, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed ... guys who I watched play. Gene Hickerson was drafted in 1957, a short 11 years after network television began broadcasting in America. I did not watch him play.
I didn't know that Gene Hickerson blocked for three hall of famers (Jim Brown, Bobby Mitchell, and Leroy Kelly). I didn't know that he was a six-time Pro Bowler. I didn't know that he was on the all-decade team of the 60s. And I didn't know that he had been waiting 29 years.
That's the confusing part; why he could never get elected. The infuriating part, is that by the time he finally
did get elected, he couldn't enjoy it. He's got symptoms of Alzheimers, sometimes can't remember his last name, and sometimes singed autographs as "Gene Dick." And some of his friends and family members suspect that his dementia was caused, at least in part, by the bitterness that consumed him through 29 years of not getting into the Hall of Fame.
Check out more about Hickerson in
this excellent article from Mary Kay Cabot in Tuesday's Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
When Rod Woodson takes his place among other revered Pro Football Hall of Fame members during the August 8 Enshrinement Ceremony in Canton, Ohio as part of the Class of 2009, the 11-time Pro Bowler says he won't be thinking about his special status: the 63rd player among 253 members to be elected in his first year of eligibility.
