Aug 8, 2015, Canton, OH, USA; Charles Haley (right) and presenter Eddie DeBartolo Jr. pose with the bust at the 2015 Pro Football Enshrinement Cermony at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports
At a time when the NFL commissioner is in open warfare with the league’s highest-profile player, a special committee of the Hall of Fame sent a reminder Wednesday of how the league operates best: as a partnership between management and players.
No manager in memory did that better than Eddie DeBartolo, the owner of the San Francisco 49ers during their glory days — five Super Bowl championships and 10 NFC title game appearances in less than two decades — and for that, the Hall’s contributor selection committee made DeBartolo this year’s nominee for Canton as a contributor to the game.
DeBartolo still has to pass muster with the full selection committee, which, by fortuitous serendipity, will hold its meeting Feb. 6 in San Francisco, a day before Super Bowl 50 is played in the 49ers’ stadium.
This nomination is not just about winning, although that surely was the result of the way DeBartolo dealt with his team. It is about the attitude and the template he established, about how he respected his players as integral partners and not as serfs or chattel.
Critics say DeBartolo bought his way to the top of the NFL by paying outrageous salaries, but that simplistic explanation — it’s all about money — conveniently overlooks the fact the 49ers’ first Super Bowl championship team was one of the lowest-paid in the league. Also, the players themselves never talked about how well they were paid but how well they were treated — the flowers on anniversaries, the first-class travel and hotel and facilities, the concern DeBartolo had for them when they got injured.
How many owners stand at the locker room door and hand out towels as players troop off the field? How many players get the owner’s private plane to travel home after being knocked out of a road game and hospitalized like Joe Montana? How many players receive a lifetime annuity from the owner’s own pocket after a career-ending injury, like Jeff Fuller?
Long after players left the 49ers, they kept in touch with DeBartolo, so much so that he is one of seven men who have been chosen at least four times as Hall of Fame presenters. The other six — Al Davis, Paul Brown, Tom Landry, Don Shula, Marv Levy and Hank Stram — already are enshrined in Canton.
What makes DeBartolo unusual in that role, however, is that the last player he presented at Canton, Charles Haley, was run out of San Francisco in the prime of his career because of his erratic behavior. Yet, even after winning three Super Bowl rings with Dallas, he chose DeBartolo to present him at the Hall of Fame last month.
DeBartolo should sail through the February election. He has endorsements from opponents like Bill Parcells (“Tell me who did more”) and Tony Dungy (“Changed the fact of ownership in the NFL”), from rival owners like Dallas’ Jerry Jones, New England’s Robert Kraft and Denver’s Pat Bowlen, all of whom looked to the 49ers for advice when they first got into the league, and even from Washington, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, credited DeBartolo for making the 49ers a unifying force in the city following the 1979 assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
The 49ers may not be a dominant team anymore, but it looks as if they will be giving their fans something to cheer on Super Bowl weekend, anyway.
Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than four decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange.
