Trish in the hood: The Pro Football HOF Enshrinement Dinner

Monday, August 9, 2010

The Pro Football HOF Enshrinement Dinner

Friday night found Brad and I dressed up for the Enshrinement Dinner at the Canton Civic Center. This is the dinner where the class of 2010 receives their gold HOF jackets. We had special bus passes that many of the guests at our hotel wore and it allowed us to ride in these VIP coaches to and from the events...with police escort that stopped traffic.

We rallied in the Waffle House parking lot and there were any where from 5-8 buses each time we headed off to an event. Once we arrived at the Civic Center we enjoyed the big cocktail party until the door opened to be seated for dinner. Lots of people watching, we saw Jim Gray, Billy Thompson (Bronco player) Keyshawn Johnson and Trey Wingo, and that was just where we were standing!

Once we were seated in our little room, we had Art Monk as our HOF host, the class of 2010 came through and said hello. They went off to a larger room to eat and that is where we went after dinner to see the rest of the ceremony. Here is Dick LeBeau

and here are a few shots of Floyd Little when he came into our room. Our whole table was part of his group and most of the room too.

Then there was John Randle from the Minnesota Vikings and finally Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith.

I won the center piece, a limited edition HOF beer stein. I gave it to Jeff for taking care of Piper both nights and let's face it, his beer drinking days are starting and mine are slowing down, I'm more of a skinny girl margarita drinker these days.

Here we saw Christy Little Jones, my long time friend and Floyd Little's daughter.

Brad and me a the ceremony.

The program began with the introduction of each enshrines, and John Saunders read their professional football highlights before they walked out, escorted by one of the princess's on the HOF court. (Why didn't I know about this royal court when I was younger??). Here is Floyd being escorted.

Here is Jerry Rice.

Here they are all together on the center stage, left to right Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, John Randle, Floyd Little, Dick LeBeau, Ricky Jackson and Russ Grimm (the original Hog)

Then they introduced all the returning HOF members, here are just a few.

Michael Irvin, on crutches with a torn achilles.

Howie Long greeting Ricky Jackson, one defensive guy to another, love it. Here is Joe Gibbs greeting Russ Grimm.

Here is Russ Grimm greeting Steve Largent. Pretty exciting line up of former players. It was awesome, and John Madden got one of the biggest round of applause.