Angi Boselli has been able to exhale for over six months, ever since she learned in January that husband Tony's long hope for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame was coming to an end.
But until one of the best left tackles in NFL history was elected on his sixth attempt as one of 15 finalists, the excruciating wait took a heavy toll on the Boselli family each year when voting came around.
As joyous an occasion as it will be Saturday in Canton, Ohio, when No. 71 becomes the first franchise player enshrined in the Hall of Fame, there's no erasing the agony for his friends and loved ones of watching him fall short all those years.
Each February from 2017-20, before COVID-19 altered the timing of the vote, Tony and all or parts of his family would assemble in one hotel room the day before the Super Bowl to await the result.
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The room would be filled with anxiety as the Boselli clan — usually accompanied by all five kids and other loved ones — waited in hopes of a favorable outcome.
For four straight years, they sat, fidgeted, walked around, did anything to pass the time. The trepidation over waiting several hours on two potential outcomes — either then HOF president David Baker knocking on the door with good news to welcome a player to Canton or the dreaded phone call informing Boselli he didn't get in — was impossible to ignore.
The first four phone calls came with everybody cramped in one hotel room in Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta or Miami. Last year, when COVID forced voting to take place three weeks before the Super Bowl, Boselli was alone at his office in Ponte Vedra Beach when the bad news came down again.
"That was his favorite year of rejection [in 2021] because the whole family didn't have to gather in another city and hear bad news again," said Angi. "The hardest part of the process is all the hoopla it requires to get everybody to the Super Bowl city. It's not small when you've got seven people and to get everyone's schedule coordinated.
"There's so many moving parts that getting to the Super Bowl alone is a whole lot of pressure. You're sitting in that room all dressed up for a red-carpet event or it turns out to be anticlimactic. You have to prepare for the best and the worst, and the worst is heartbreaking."
For families of HOF finalists, the rejection reaction is usually a mixture of dead silence and tears, leaving Angi and Tony to somehow manage the awkwardness of it all.
"I have to shut my emotions off entirely in that moment and stay strong," Angi said. "It'd be very hard for my husband if I struggle. I don't want to do that to him. I did my very best to keep it together. There's not a lot of talking after the call [of not making the Hall of Fame].
"There's watery eyes in that room. And once one person cries, several kids will walk out of the room and into the bathroom and you know what's going on there. It's gut-wrenching. Watching grown men cry is heartbreaking. Trying to keep my kids from crying and keeping everybody positive in that moment is hard. I usually cry two days later."
Among the grown men shedding tears in the hotel was Tony's best friend, former Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell, on two different rejection occasions.
Brunell, now the quarterback coach of the Detroit Lions , acknowledges the emotions are tough to contain because he thought Boselli was getting in and the rejection was so deflating.
"Tony's a good friend and it's something I felt he deserved," said Brunell, who will be Boselli's presenter at his induction. "For him to repeatedly get a phone call and not a knock on the door, to be denied multiple years in a row, was tough to watch.
"I wanted it so bad for him, just like everybody else in the room. It's hard. What do you say in those moments? Probably the strongest person in the room who handled it best was Tony. He put everybody at ease. He was typically the one who was positive."
Andrew Boselli, Tony's oldest child, feels immense relief that his father's long wait is over, but will never forget those gut-wrenching moments when he was there in those hotel rooms in Minnesota, Atlanta and Miami and the news was always bad.
"The wait and anticipation is brutal," said Andrew. "Uncle Mark [his name for Brunell] knows the game of football and the years he cried, he really believed it was my Dad's time. When you get that crushing phone call, it just sucks the life out of the room. My Dad would be the one to say it's not the end of the world."
Boselli, who waited nine years after his first year of eligibility (2007) just to be one of 25 semifinalists, admits his first rejection as a finalist in 2017 was much easier to accept than the more recent ones.
As excited as he was at the prospect of getting in, Tony made sure to brace himself for handling the collective dejection of his family when he didn't make it.
"Each year, it gets a little bit worse when you don't make it," said Boselli. "I respect the process and what the Hall of Fame stands for. The guys who made it when I didn't, they deserve to be there.
"But naturally, your family is going to be disappointed and they're going to be sad. So half the time, I found myself being like a family counselor. I'm the one trying to encourage them, 'Hey, it'll be OK. Life goes on.' More than anything, the message [all the disappointment] sends to me is how much people care about me and love me and I'm really fortunate for that."
Since only a maximum of five modern-era candidates out of 15 can be elected each year, Angi says her husband made sure to set a tone with the family about how to handle him getting passed over for enshrinement.
"Tony felt the process always honored the right guys at the right time," said Angi. "It didn't take much to pull him up. His words were true. Every time [after not making the Hall], he would say if you want to honor and respect me and love on me, none of you will say one foul word about anyone who got in. That was the speech every year and we just fall in line.
"I've watched guys pitch a fit when they didn't get in. My kids ended up getting Super Bowl tickets from guys that didn't make it and just wanted to get out of there."
Ironically, one of Boselli's biggest cheerleaders as the Hall of Fame snubs kept piling up was LeRoy Butler, a Jacksonville native and 12-year safety with the Green Bay Packers who will be enshrined with him.
While the HOF roadblock for Boselli was always his shortened career (91 games) due to injury, Butler, a product of Lee High School (now Riverside) and Florida State, had to deal with the impediment of playing a position that didn't get a lot of respect from voters until the last decade.
As much as Butler wanted to get into Canton, he didn't become a finalist until 2020, but his two years of rejection didn't bother him as much as seeing his good friend Boselli fall short of election.
"Realistically, I was just glad to be mentioned as a semifinalist the first time [in 2018], I thought that was awesome," said Butler. "When I got to be a finalist, it didn't matter the first year if I got in. I was just happy to be in the final 15 and meet [Hall of Fame quarterback] Roger Staubach, which was a highlight of my life.
"I didn't have as much agony as Tony. What I went through was a cakewalk compared to Tony because my Mom [Eunice, who passed away in 2016] prepared me. She told me I had waited my whole life to be successful [in football], so just respect the [Hall of Fame] process and you'll probably enjoy it more."
But in 2020, when former Seattle Seahawks/Minnesota Vikings guard Steve Hutchinson was the only offensive lineman elected over Boselli, an annoyed Butler came close to sending out a critical social media post to express his dismay over his Jaguars' friend being passed over again.
"I almost went ballistic when Tony didn't make it down in Miami," said Butler. "I almost pushed send, but I held back because I didn't want to hurt Tony's cause [in the future]."
It's all good now. Boselli and Butler can stop playing the waiting game. They will go into Canton together, the first time a pair with Jacksonville connections are enshrined in the same year.
"This makes all the waiting worth it," said Butler. "It's like a young lady waiting for a guy to propose. Every year, she waits and it doesn't come. Her friends say, 'Oh, don't worry, this will be the year.' Well, next thing you know, Charles Woodson is knocking at your door."
Every member of the 2022 Hall of Fame class got the same door knock as Butler, receiving the news of their induction from another player who already had a bust in Canton.
Boselli's surprise came on January 28 when Anthony Munoz, a fellow offensive tackle from his alma mater, Southern Cal, showed up at the door of Eric and Kay Murphy, friends and neighbors of Boselli.
The Jaguars legend was under the impression that the CEO from his San Francisco healthcare company would meet him there for a work-related reason. It was all part of an elaborate ruse arranged by HOF president Kyle Porter, who had an NFL Network crew there to film the occasion.
As Boselli opened the door and saw Munoz, his entire family who kept the secret from him was hiding in the neighbor's garage, waiting to come out and join the celebration. The Boselli family had to keep the secret another 13 days when the news was delivered publicly in Los Angeles at the NFL Honors program.
Jennifer Wright, Tony's sister, was never in the hotel room at any Super Bowl when the bad news came down, but the Colorado resident knew her brother was getting in and she showed up in Jacksonville several hours after Munoz came knocking at the door.
"We had a surprise party for Tony that was really cool," said Wright. "I don't know that I've ever seen him so happy and relaxed. It seemed this huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders."
The night before Boselli found out his long-suffering wait would be over, he went out to dinner with Angi and Andrew, completely unaware of what would go down the next morning.
"He was in such a cranky mood at dinner, saying 'I'm not going to make it, I'm not going to make it,' " said Andrew. "As my Dad walked out of the restaurant, my Mom and I left in a separate car and we were dying laughing, knowing what was coming the next day and how he's going to freak the heck out.
"As much as those other times were so disappointing and there were brutal moments, in the end, it was all worth it. My Dad looked like he had seen a ghost when Munoz was at the door."
The only regret for Boselli is his father, Anthony Sr., who was there in the family hotel room when he got rejected for the Hall, won't be in Canton. He passed away from melanoma in May, 2021.
"He was so upset when I didn't get in, but I know he would have been just over the moon [to be at his induction]," Tony said. "So selfishly for me, more than anything, him not being here is hard.
"There'll be a small little void in Canton without him being there, but I know he's there in spirit. I believe he's looking down from heaven, smiling, and proud of his oldest son making the Hall of Fame."
For Angi, the six-month long celebration leading up to her husband's induction feels like a fitting reward for so much family agony in recent years. Not just the Hall of Fame snubs, but Tony becoming seriously ill from COVID-19 in March, 2020, his father's declining health and passing, along with Angi enduring four surgeries for thyroid and endometrium cancer.
"In my quiet time, there was a whole trust-God thing," said Angi. "Life is real and hard sometimes. Tony getting into the Hall was one of those things I felt was going to happen. I believe it was just God's timing.
"The fact [the announcement] happened in Los Angeles, where Tony and I went to school and after all the [Super Bowl] cities we had been to, it never felt so good and so right. I'm just happy that his talent and how dominant he was on the field ended up being the overriding factor.
"I'm thrilled they got it right. That feels just to me."
Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540
Gene Frenette Sports columnist at Florida Times-Union, follow him on Twitter @genefrenette
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Tony Boselli will be inducted to Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday
