Largent Lives Out His Dreams

Steve Largent thought his NFL career was finished before it ever really began. Lee Roy Selmon never expected to play pro football. Kellen Winslow didn’t even want to play the game in high school.

So, of course, none of the three ever envisioned receiving football’s highest honor, election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“My entire career was like living out a kid’s dream, like a Walt Disney movie with a very happy ending,” Largent, the former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, said Saturday at a press conference for the 1995 class that will be inducted into the Hall.

Largent, who wasn’t taken in the 1976 draft until Houston picked him as the 117th player chosen, played just four preseason games for the Oilers. Then, they let him go.

“I was released by the Oilers - I didn’t even know what recallable waivers was - and my wife and I packed everything we owned in the back of a five-by-seven U-Haul trailer and pulled it back to Oklahoma City with our Pinto station wagon,” he said.

“I cried from Houston to Oklahoma City. I thought football was over for me and I’d better start preparing for my life’s work. Then I received a call from Seattle asking, `Would you like another chance?”’

The Oilers got an eighth-round draft choice for Largent, who went on to become one of the best receivers to play the game, with 819 catches for 13,089 yards and 100 touchdowns in 14 years with Seattle.

Now a U.S. representative, Largent said he wasn’t sure that he would be elected to the Hall of Fame, explaining: “Since I’m holding office for the first time, I know that anytime people vote on something, you never know what’s going to happen.”

Largent, Selmon and Winslow will be honored today at halftime of the Pro Bowl, then will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in July along with Henry Jordan, a defensive tackle for the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, and football executive Jim Finks, who were elected posthumously.

Selmon, a defensive end, was the first player picked by the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1976.

Winslow, the former San Diego Charger who was one of the finest tight ends ever in the NFL, said he had no interest in football until the high school coaches back in East St. Louis recruited him out of gym class.