My dad was chosen, by a special committee of Hall of Fame selectors, as the best guard in the first fifty years of the NFL.

Joining dad on that team were fellow Packers Ray Nitschke, Don Hutson and Cal Hubbard. At quarterback the committee chose Johnny Unitas, running backs Jim Brown and Gale Sayers and flanker Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch beat out dad’s teammate Boyd Dowler for the starting position. Rounding out the offensive selections were Chuck Bednarik at center and John Mackey at tight end. On defense were Gino Marchetti, Leo Nomellini, Dick “Night Train” Lane and Emlen Tunnel. Jim Thorpe was selected to a special category called “the star the never diminishes”. Lou Groza was chosen as the kicker.

During my career as a photographer, I’ve photographed icons like Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Fidel Castro, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan. With this magazine, I wanted to document dad’s Hall of Fame journey. Included are some of letters of endorsement written on dad’s behalf from Hall of Famers such as Frank Gifford, Bob Lilly, Alex Karras and Mike Ditka. Thanks to Rick Gosselin for letting me use his Hall of Fame presentation speech and to my dad for letting me use his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to photograph my dad and family in Canton during the enshrinement week festivities and again, six weeks later, in Green Bay during the Ring Ceremony at Lambeau Field.

After waiting almost 45 years, it’s great that this most egregious omission has finally been rectified, what cannot be replaced are the decades of returning to Canton and just hanging out with the guys.