HERTZEL COLUMN - Hall of Fame humbling to Major, Warner

By Bob Hertzel

MORGANTOWN — Major Harris never was a man of many words, which was fine. In many ways he was better as an action hero right out of the G.I. Joe genre.

To others, words came easily. To the Major, he let his actions do the talking for him as he played quarterback at West Virginia University, doing things that others not only couldn’t do, but couldn’t even imagine doing.

Now, he stood in New York City at no less a fancy-schmancy place than the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue. A microphone was before him as one of the inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the floor was his.

He was short and sweet, as he always is. This was no Lou Gehrig speech, no “luckiest man on the face of the earth” stuff.

It was Major Harris being Major Harris.

“This is the icing on the cake for my career,” he began in that familiar, scratchy voice. “When I look back on it, you never dream of making the College Football Hall of Fame. It was just fun. I am kind of shellshocked. I compare us to airplanes. If you play college sports, this is where you want to land.”

Indeed it is. The Hall of Fame.

For Major Harris it was simply another “touch down.”

Think about that for a moment.

It is, in its own way, immortality, at least in the universe that worships at the Golden Dome.

It is Rockne and Grange and Nagurski and the Major.

On this day they were honoring a solid class of inductees, men with Heisman Trophies and Super Bowl rings. The biggest and the best … and do you know the reaction that came from the likes of Tim Brown of Notre Dame and Gino Torretta of Miami and Grant Wistrom of Nebraska and Pat Swilling of Georgia Tech and Chris Spielman of Ohio State and, yes, West Virginia’s own Curt Warner, who defected to Penn State and led the Nittany Lions to the national championship that his own state university has never won?

The reaction of all these men who had reached heights few others ever can experience was to bring them back to their roots, to take their egos and rather than inflate them as could happen so easily with men who were lesser in character, it brought them all down to their knees.

The word of the day was humility.

It is impossible to quantify how often and in how many forms these giants of their game expressed their humility. What they accomplished, they said, was not theirs alone for it belonged to family and fans, teammates and coaches and, perhaps most of all, to the

universities that gave them their chance and to the game of football, which was bigger than any of it.

Consider the story that Warner had to tell.

“When I reflect back, who could imagine a kid from the hills … from the coal-mining hills of West Virginia would have such an opportunity to be part of such a class,” he said.

Indeed, who could have drawn a path from Pineville, W.Va., to the Hall of Fame through State College, Pa., where he rushed for 1,000 yards in consecutive seasons back when 1,000 yards meant something, leading the Nittany Lions to their first national championship in 1982.

It was also a coach named Joe Paterno’s first national championship, too, certainly not the beginning of the legend but certainly the foundation upon which the legend grew.

“People ask me about him all the time,” Warner said. “I tell them he’s a guy you learn to like … after you get out of Penn State. He’s a hard-nose, outspoken guy who can be opinionated. It was an honor to play for him.

“When I look back over my career, it becomes a humbling time to reflect upon family, friends, teammates and coaches. I happen to have one of my teammates with me – [quarterback] Todd Blackledge. He was a integral part of being able to capture than national championship.”

The realization was there that even as a Hall of Famer, Curt Warner was part of something bigger, part of a family, a team and a sport that stands above it all.

Steve McMichael was a defensive end and unanimous All-American in the late 1970s. As he spoke, he thought back to his father, to night he had died, and realized exactly what it this honor was all about.

“Without the University of Texas becoming my patriarch, I wouldn’t be sitting here today,” he said.

He looked at those around him, the other inductees.

“The universities they come from is what college football is all about. All the thanks goes to the university, the coaches, the guys you play with. If you are out there alone, I don’t care how good you are, they are going to stop you.”

In college football, it is never you against the world.

Take Woodrow Lowe, a linebacker for Bear Bryant at Alabama in the early 1970s and a three-time All-American who led the Crimson Tide to a national championship.%

“It’s kind of hard to express what is in my heart right now,” he said. “It’s never been about me. It’s about people — mothers, sportswriters, spectators, fans that make us special. Playing this game is easy. The excitement that goes along with the game creates character and values that you all put in us.”

“I am so humble now with so many people I need to thank.”

Certainly, thanks are in order, but not from the players to those of us who have experienced the excitement and pleasure they have brought us, for it is we who should be thanking these men for what they did, yes, but more for who they are and the way they have carried themselves over the years.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.