PHOENIX --- Former Colts head coach Tony Dungy, wide receiver Marvin Harrison, and general manager Bill Polian are three of fifteen finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which will be voted on Saturday and announced that night during the NFL Honors Show (NBC, 9pm ET).
Dungy was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show Monday in Arizona and revealed the dramatic process that will unfold throughout the day Saturday for those Hall of Fame finalists, after he went through the process last year:
"The Hall of Fame picks you up and takes you to the Renaissance Hotel. They have a hotel room for all 15 of the people, and you basically sit in the room. They're voting on the final class. At some point around 4:30 in the afternoon you'll get a call, or they'll knock on your door and say, 'You made it,' or 'You were eliminated.'
If you make it, then you go and you sit at the Honors night in a certain section. They announce you at the end. If you don't make it, you're sitting in the audience. Yeah.
It's a tough process. You do have to put it out of your mind, but it's difficult."
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Dungy remembered what it was like to be a finalist last year but being eliminated and sitting in the audience during the Honors Show:
"I was sitting in the (audience during the) Honors (Show), and I'm looking. (Former Chiefs guard) Will Shields was sitting next to me, and I said, 'You didn't make it? How did you not make it?' It's crazy.
Dan Patrick made a hilarious point that it's like the The Bachelor. How good of a reality show would the selection process be for the Hall of Fame finalists? I can see it now. Will you accept this gold jacket?
Dungy's Super Bowl Speech
Dungy also told a hilarious story about his speech to the Colts the night before his Super Bowl win against the Bears. He told his team there would be a "storm" they'd have to overcome at some point in the game. Dungy was all fired up after giving the speech that later in the evening he decided they would no longer kick away from Devin Hester in the Super Bowl, because it was "playing scared". The Colts had planned on kicking away from Hester all week.
Dungy informed his team of that decision the next morning. "We're going to pound (Hester). When they know we've taken their best threat, they're going to be finished. 13 seconds later he was in the endzone...I went back and I said, 'I told you we'd have storm.'"
Priceless.
