It is a tradition that is synonymous with football immortality. It starts with David Baker, the president and CEO of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, standing in front of a hotel door, the top of the 6-foot head 9, 400 pounds, even with the top of the frame. All finalists for this year’s Hall of Fame class were invited to the Super Bowl host city and brought to a hotel.
With his head slightly bowed and a smile slapped on his face, his massive right fist slams on the door in a rhythmic pattern, a life-changing four- or five-beat rhapsody that precedes the news that the men on the other side waited years, sometimes decades, to hear.
“On behalf of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it is my privilege to welcome you to Canton, Ohio,” Baker says regularly. “I want to thank you for everything you have done for the game … and for everything you are going to do for the game.”
For Baker, who has been in his current role at the Hall since 2014, he gave the news via ‘The Knock’ to the newly elected COURT members a day before the Super Bowl became the biggest highlight of his work.
‘How do you make a grown man cry? You tell him they’re going to be in Canton, Ohio, “Baker recently told Yahoo Sports with a laugh.
How the ‘Knock’ tradition of Pro Football Hall of Fame began
This was not always the case. This is a relatively new tradition for the hall, which even those who preceded it used.
“Okay, you know I never thought about how I was told,” former Dallas Cowboys star Troy Aikman recently told Yahoo Sports. “I know the big David Baker did not knock on my door.”
Baker said the idea was conceived while notifying 2014 class members that they were boarding.
‘It’s so joyful and it’s so special, and it’s such a lifelong confirmation for these guys to hear that they were chosen to do it, in my opinion, by telephone, and to read it to the newspaper, they something deny what they deserve, ”Baker said.
It was specifically the reaction of former Raiders punter Ray Guy, a multiple finalist who has been eligible for all three decades, that helped drive the point for Baker. He was quickly struck by the weight of the moment.
“I said, ‘Hey Ray, this is Dave Baker, I’m the new president of the hall,’ ‘Baker said,’ and he took the slow, southern Mississippi trek, and he said, ‘Yes, sir.’ … and I said, ‘Ray, that’s my great pleasure’ and I came this far and I could hear him fall to the ground and rattle his phone – his wife says, ‘Baby, honey, are you OK? ? ‘ ‘
It was like two minutes before he got back on his feet.
“I thought I killed my first Hall of Famer,” Baker continued. ‘But finally he said,’ Hey, I’m really sorry, I do not think I have understood until now how much this means to me.
‘And from that moment on, I especially started talking to the NFL Network about how we can see it for fans to see? It was a wonderful moment for me. I understood something. ‘
With the help of NFL Network, which he says pays for the finalists to attend each year, they began the tradition of setting up ‘The Knock’. The end result often includes cameras capturing adult men crying in a mixture of joy and relief, while their loved ones scream and jump behind them seconds after Baker’s knock. It all became very popular and a good advertisement for the hall.
It has not always been smooth because they also had to refine the process through trial and error.
“God rests his soul, Kevin Greene, one year he did not reach it, but he was in a room next door to someone who did it, and it hurt his feelings,” Baker said. “And from that we learned, ‘Hey, before anyone next door celebrates, we should go get the other guys first, because we hate to disappoint them, but we can not despise them at all. ‘
Only eight of the 18 finalists in a given year can make it, meaning “The Knock” doesn’t come for some, which can make for a cruel experience for multiple finalists.
It’s a rough experience that Terrell Owens, for example, turned down an invitation to come back after missing the hall in 2017, his second time as a finalist. Eventually he entered, but skipped the appearance ceremony the following summer and insisted he had no regrets.
The vast majority of finalists are still coming back.
Changes to Hall of Fame’s ‘Knock’ process amid COVID
Among the 2021 finalists are several multi-time workers who have experienced their disappointment. Due to COVID concerns, they could not gather in a hotel and wait for the usual knock on their room doors. The tradition still lives on.
The Hall of Fame’s 48-member selection committee meets the day before the Super Bowl to select that year’s class, after which the finalists who made it are immediately notified of the news. However, the selection committee selected this year’s class about two weeks ago, which gave Baker time to notify those who did not make it and to travel through the country to notify those.
“They did not have the stress of being in a hotel room, you know, and wondering if they were going to get the beating or the call,” Baker said. “But it was a real surprise, and so many of them were able to share it with people who mean a lot to them.”
The general public will find out on Saturday night at the 2021 NFL honors show, and the new process went smoothly that Baker would not do it again in 2022, depending on the country’s pandemic.
The finalist award in 2022 in Los Angeles, the site of Super Bowl LVI, could also be amazing, Baker admitted. Meanwhile, Baker is excited for people to see what they’re up for this year.
“I think it’s going to be quite special,” he said.
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