Home | Subscribe | Contact Us | Advertise Home | Subscribe | Contact Us | Advertise
|
Only eight out of every 10,000 high school football players eventually play for a National Football League team, according to a National Collegiate Athletic Association study. Of the elite group who play, coach or work in professional football, only 241 have earned the ultimate honor—election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Roger Wehrli is one of them.
The vice president at FormStore Incorporated, Fenton, Mo., capped a remarkable athletic career when he was officially named to the Hall of Fame’s 2007 class. Wehrli spent 14 seasons as a cornerback with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he recorded 40 interceptions. He was voted to seven Pro Bowls, named All-Pro five times and named to the NFL’s All-Decade team of the 1970s. His fellow 2007 Hall of Fame enshrinees include Gene Hickerson, Michael Irvin, Bruce Matthews, Charlie Sanders and Thurman Thomas.
The announcement came at a press conference during Super Bowl weekend. A 40-person Board of Selectors, consisting primarily of sportswriters, met in Miami to decide among 17 finalists. Typically, the Board chooses between three and six inductees each year. Wehrli knew he was a finalist and waited in his St. Louis home for the phone to ring. The press conference was set to take place at 1:30 p.m. CST. “We expected a call before then, but the meetings went late.” says Wehrli. “The only time you get the call is if you make it, so I figured I hadn’t made the final vote.”
|
Wehrli’s phone finally rang, and it kept ringing for the next several hours, as reporters, former teammates, co-workers, family and friends called to congratulate him. “Finally, we just put down the phone and left the house,” says Wehrli.
New Hall of Fame enshrinees are formally introduced at the Pro Bowl in Honolulu. Wehrli recalls that he hadn’t been to Hawaii since 1980: “The last time I was in Hawaii was the last year that I played in the Pro Bowl,” says Wehrli, “That was the first year that they started having it there.
“The people of Hawaii really embrace the Pro Bowl, because it’s the only NFL game they have. They treat it like the Super Bowl,” he says. For three days, Wehrli and the other inductees were shuffled from one event to another, including media interviews and a celebrity golf tournament. Standing in front of more than 50,000 attendees at Aloha Stadium, Wehrli got a taste of what enshrinement will be like at the Canton, Ohio-based Hall of Fame’s official induction ceremony in August. “It’s a big celebration in Canton,” he says. “They have the induction ceremony on a Saturday night, and then the first exhibition game of the season is the next day.” This year, the Pittsburgh Steelers will play the New Orleans Saints during the annual Hall of Fame Game.
—Andy Brown
