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Woody Hayes, Ohio State football set Randy Gradishar on path to Pro Football Hall of Fame
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- Woody Hayes, Ohio State football set Randy Gradishar on path to Pro Football Hall of Fame
Steve Doerschuk studied the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024 from an Ohio perspective. Randy Gradishar played his entire NFL career (1974-83) in Denver after starring at Ohio State.
CANTON− Baby Boomer Randy Gradishar is back in the hubbub, finally going in the Pro Football Hall of Fame 35 years after he became eligible.
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He is long forgotten by some and was never noticed by the younger crowd, but he was one of the greatest Ohio State Buckeyes, and that will always count for something, to many.
In advance of his enshrinement, based on a 10-year run as a Denver Broncos linebacker, Gradishar and the rest of the Class of 2024 visited the Hall in late May.
Traffic whizzed by on I-77 as the oldest enshrinee-elect (he is 72) stood 55 miles away from where he grew up unaware there was a Hall of Fame. He seemed at peace with all of the time gone by.
Gradishar was a little boy when the Hall of Fame opened, unbeknownst to him.
Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Randy Gradishar helped anchor the Denver Broncos' Orange Crush defense in the 1970s.
"I didn't follow the Browns or the Steelers or Ohio State," he said. "We didn't pay much attention to football.
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"The big high school teams were in Warren and Canton and Massillon. They played in front of thousands of people. The crowds for games at our high school were 200 or 300, maybe."
Members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024, including Dwight Freeney, Randy Gradishar, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, Misty McMichael (representing husband Steve McMichael), Julius Peppers and Patrick Willis unveil a banner at the Hall, Friday, May 24, 2024.
The Gradishars lived in rural Champion Township, north of Warren. Randy grew to 6-foot-3 and was a natural athlete, as good in basketball as he was in football.
"My parents were kids during the Depression," he said. "My dad was in World War II, and then he opened a grocery store.
"It was a little store with a meat counter where dad would slice the lunch meat."
Randy worked at the store. One day the Champion High School principal called to say Woody Hayes was in the building asking about him.
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Hayes, from Ohio State, was as famous as any football coach in the USA.
"I was thinking, I don't know who Woody Hayes is," Gradishar recalls. "I said, 'Dad, who is Woody Hayes?'"
Hayes found his way to the grocery store.
"Dad was slicing baloney when Woody introduced himself," Gradishar recalls. "He talked to dad for more than an hour. They talked a lot about World War II.
"He didn't talk to me at all. I thought that was strange, but that was before I realized Woody recruited the parents."
This was before email, cell phones, and social media.
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Hayes was magical face to face. Gradishar signed with the Buckeyes somewhat on the heels of their 1968 national championship.
He was a star linebacker by 1972, on a 9-2 team that featured a classic, Woody-style pounder at fullback, Champ Henson, who scored 20 touchdowns.
In 1973, when sophomore Archie Griffin emerged at tailback, the Buckeyes went 10-0-1, missing out on the national championship because of a 10-10 tie with Michigan.
The Heisman Trophy vote was odd. Penn State running back John Cappelletti won with 229 first-place votes, followed by Ohio State offensive tackle John Hicks (114), Texas running back Roosevelt Leaks (74), Kansas quarterback Dave Jaynes (65), and the Buckeye teammates Gradishar (47) and Griffin (45).
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Gradishar is in the debate of "best Buckeye linebackers." High draft picks at the position include Ohio State's:
Jim Houston (No. 8 overall draft pick, 1960, Browns); Rick Middleton (No. 13, 1974, Saints); Gradishar (No. 14, 1974, Broncos); Tom Cousineau (No. 1, 1979, Bills ); Pepper Johnson (No. 51, 1986, Giants ); Eic Kumerow (No. 16, 1988); Chris Spielman (No. 29, 1988, Lions); Craig Powell (No. 30, 1995, Browns); Andy Katzenmoyer (No. 28, 1999, Patriots); A.J. Hawk (No. 5, 2006, Packers ); Bobby Carpenter (No. 18, 2006, Cowboys); James Laurinaitis (No. 35, 2009, Rams), and Ryan Shazier (No. 15, 2014, Steelers).
Gradishar is the first Pro Football Hall of Famer from that group.
Gradishar joins eight former Ohio State players from other positions in the Hall of Fame: Jim Parker, Lou Groza, Dante Lavelli, Bill Willis, Paul Warfield, Dick LeBeau, Cris Carter and Orlando Pace.
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Ask what he remembers most about his Buckeye days and fires back three syllables.
"Woody Hayes."
"He wanted us to focus more on getting an education than on football," Gradishar said. "He was famous for advancing the concept of 'pay it forward.'
"I was a freshman when he talked to me about 'pay it forward' and I had never heard the words before.'
"I found out by way of example. The football players would load onto a bus. The bus would take us to children's hospitals and nursing homes."
He was about to fall in Cleveland 's lap in the 1974 draft.
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The Browns had the 15th pick, and he was still available through No. 13. It's hard to believe in retrospect that Gradishar's fellow Ohio State linebacker, the aforementioned Middleton, was the No. 13 pick, by New Orleans − his NFL career lasted four seasons.
Unfortunately for the Browns, Denver pounced on Gradishar at No. 14. Cleveland then traded the 15th pick to the Chargers , who chose linebacker Don Goode.
Gradishar's time with the Broncos was an extension of his Buckeye days.
On the 1977 defense that led Denver to its first Super Bowl, Lyle Alzado was the loud star. Gradishar was the quiet force.
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The top three in NFL Defensive Player of the Year balloting were Harvey Martin of the Cowboys, Alzado and Gradishar.
Gradishar was defensive player of the year in 1978, ahead of Pittsburgh 's Jack Ham, Dallas ' Randy White and Pittsburgh's Jack Lambert.
His last NFL season was his 10th, when he was still drawing defensive player of the year votes. He was an iron man who never missed a game.
Randy Gradishar, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024, signs autographs for Braxton and Beckham Thompson of Franklin, during a visit to the Hall, Friday, May 24, 2024.
He was the glue on an "Orange Crush" defense that included fellow inside linebacker Tom Jackson, who later made a name in broadcasting and is Gradishar's Hall of Fame presenter.
The Broncos beat the Raiders 20-17 in the 1977 AFC Championship Game before falling 27-10 to the Cowboys in Super Bowl XII.
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"He had good size, good speed and he had the ability to avoid blockers,'' Gradishar's defensive coordinator, Joe Collier, told the Denver Gazette this year. "People would throw blocks at his legs and try to knock him down and he'd step over them or jump over them.
"He could avoid blockers like nobody I ever saw."
Gradishar retired a few years before the first of Cleveland's three infamous losses to Denver in AFC Championship Games. He did his own damage against the Browns.
He was a rookie when the Broncos fell 23-21 at Cleveland, whose quarterback was Mike Phipps.
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After that, he was a ringleader of Broncos teams that went 6-0 against the Browns, all with Brian Sipe at quarterback for Cleveland.
The winning scores reflected the quality of the Gradishar-led defenses: 16-15 in 1975, 44-13 in 1976, 19-7 in 1978, 19-6 in 1980, 23-21 in 1981 and 27-6 in 1983.
Gradishar intercepted Sipe three times, including a 93-yard pick-six at Cleveland in 1980.
The 1983 game, in which he had a sack, essentially put Denver in the playoffs and knocked out the Browns.
Why he didn't make the Hall of Fame until now is a good question, but not one he asks at this stage of his life, which he has lived in Denver for decades.
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"I'm a Christian," he said. "My future isn't here."
Beth Gradishar, wife of Randy Gradishar, and Zingha Hester, wife of Devin Hester, look at their husband's memorabilia case as members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024 during a visit to the Hall, Friday, May 24, 2024.
He admitted he doesn't watch much football these days. Mostly, it's the Buckeyes, the Broncos, or spending the weekend on something else.
He does keep his hands on the game as an equipment inspector for the Broncos.
"Do you know what an equipment inspector is?" he said with a smile.
That question could be turned and come out as, "Do you know who Randy Gradishar is?"
If not, he seems OK with that.
Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Ohio State, Warren legend Randy Gradishar in Pro Football Hall of Fame
