Voting – For President And the Hall Of Fame

The time has come for my quadrennial interlude.  Today is Election Day and it is important that every intelligent and informed citizen carries out their responsibility to vote.  My long-suffering wife and I voted last week in person at our local polling place to avoid any long lines at the polls; if you are registered and have not voted, please make time today to go and do so.

• I do not care for whom you vote; that is none of my business; you can choose vote for “my candidate” or “another candidate”; the important thing is that you vote.

And now back to our regularly scheduled ranting…

I want to focus today on a sports issue that relates to voting albeit not in any way similar in consequence to the Presidential election underway here.  I want to present to you some data and then ask a question about “voting” for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Here is a list of 8 coaches who are in the Hall of Fame for their accomplishments.  I will list them alphabetically with their win/loss record and win percentage appended.  Before I begin the list, let me note that these are not all the coaches in the Hall of Fame but that I do not believe that anyone would think that these guys slithered in through the cracks; I submit that all eight of these coaches are rightfully enshrined in Canton, OH:

1. Bill Cowher:   149 – 90 – 1    .623
2. Joe Gibbs:   154 – 94 – 0    .623
3. Sid Gillman:   122 – 99 – 7   .552
4. Bud Grant:   158 – 96 – 5   .621
5. Tom Landry:   250 – 152 – 6   .607
6. Chuck Noll:   193 – 148 – 1   .566
7. Hank Stram:   131 – 97 – 10   .574
8. Bill Walsh:   92 – 59 – 1   .603

            Before I present a candidate for the Hall of Fame and his coaching record, can we all agree that every coach on my list here belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

Now let me offer up Candidate X for Hall of Fame consideration:

• Coach X was a head coach in the NFL for 4 different teams over a span of 21 seasons.
• Coach X posted a record of 200 – 126 – 1  winning percentage = .613
• Coach X never won a Super Bowl trophy – – but neither did Bud Grant or Sid Gillman on the list above.
• Coach X is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite his record fitting very comfortably in the range of records for those eight fully deserving coaches.

            So, who is this mystery coach who has been “denied his due”?  That is the coaching record of Marty Shottenheimer who was the head coach in Cleveland, Kansas City, Washington and San Diego.  [Aside:  He is also the one and only head coach of the Washington franchise during the Daniel Snyder Era to come out of that experience without a losing record.  Joe Gibbs on the list of Hall of Fame coaches above could not do that.]

The only knock on Shottenheimer’s record that jumps out at me is his failure in the playoffs and his failure to win a Super Bowl.  However, his teams did make the playoffs 13 times in his 21 seasons at the helm and those were times before the playoffs expanded to 12 and 14 teams each year.  So, what’s the deal here?

• No, I do not believe that there is a mysterious cabal of Hall of Fame voters that has conspired to keep Marty Shottenheimer out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• No, I do not think there is some measure of “secret sordid circumstances” in his career or his life.
• I simply think he has been overlooked.

Finally, the motto of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is:

• Honor the Greatest of the Game.

The “numbers” here tell me that one of the “Greatest of the Game” has slipped into a crack.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………