NFL celebrates Hall of Famers

By GREG AUMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 28, 2000

This weekend is not the Super Bowl, or even the NFL draft, but NFL.com is working to make festivities at the Pro Football Hall of Fame memorable. In addition to Saturday's induction ceremonies, the weekend is being billed as "Pro Football's Greatest Reunion," with 111 of the 136 living Hall of Famers expected to attend. Touted as the largest gathering of any Hall of Fame for any sport, it also is an opportunity for an unprecedented lineup of chats at NFL.com.

"We're trying to approach this like we do the Super Bowl, or the draft, and give the fans wall-to-wall coverage," said Chris Widmaire, the NFL's director of corporate communications. "We'll have three hours of TV coverage, but there's so much more stuff going on."

Chats begin this afternoon and will continue all day Saturday, with legends such as Don Shula and Roger Staubach among those scheduled. The ceremony will be available in live streaming video, and former Cowboys executive Gil Brandt will host a two-hour Internet-only radio program at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Though it will be impressive to hear from so many of the NFL's all-time greats, the jewel of NFL.com's coverage is being able to see them in their prime. The site has video clips for inductees ranging from Jim Thorpe to John Elway, showing highlights and interviews from NFL Films' libraries, complete with trumpeting background music and narration by the late John Facenda.

Lee Roy Selmon will be in Canton for the second time since he was enshrined in 1995. He said Wednesday he was approached about chatting on NFL.com but wasn't sure if he could pry himself away from his fellow Hall of Famers long enough to do so.

"I think this is a historic occasion," Selmon said. "It's special in that you don't get to see them all like this very often. You feel very fortunate to be a part of something like this."

Another site worth a visit is profootballhof.com, the Hall's official site, which has a virtual tour, team histories, and audio clips such as Selmon's 25-minute induction speech, given by his brother and teammate, Dewey. LET'S GET TOGETHER: It's not exactly AOL and Time Warner merging, but the online sports world saw two major power plays this week. ESPN.com, the Internet's top sports site, bolstered that position with a deal with Verizon Wireless, the country's largest wireless communications provider. ESPN.com now will send scores and headlines to Verizon's 25-million cell-phone customers. ... San Francisco-based Quokka Sports, which is producing NBC's Olympics site, shelled out $130-million to buy Raleigh, N.C.-based Total Sports, which has sports sites that include totalsports.com, golf.com and finalfour.net. Like most sites, Total Sports has yet to turn a profit, and with a payroll of 130, the price tag works out to roughly $1-million per person.

ESPN UPDATE: As expected, Ronde and Tiki Barber's official site, nfltwins.com, lost to an Anna Kournikova site last week in the first round of ESPN The Magazine's Internet Athlete of the Year competition. The Barbers received 28.3 percent of the vote. In a stunning upset, the site for Jackie Stiles, a basketball player at Southwest Missouri State, defeated ARod.com, the official site for All-Star shortstop Alex Rodriguez. Bucs star Warren Sapp's official site, big99.com, competes in the quarterfinals this weekend against a strange Mark McGwire fan site, msgtgumby.tripod.com.

CHATWATCH: Dade City's Jim Courier, who will play for the New York Hamptons of World TeamTennis this summer, chats at Sportsline.com at 6 p.m. today. ... College football recruiting analyst Tom Lemming will chat on ESPN.com at 4 p.m. Monday. ... NBA star Tracy McGrady will be at clubs.lycos.com at 9 p.m. Wednesday, one day after he is expected to sign with the Orlando Magic.

TID-BYTES: Interested in golfing with John Elway? A contest at thegolfchannel.com will award a round with Elway as part of a week's golf vacation at Kiawah Island, S.C. ... Sportsline.com conducted a poll Thursday asking "Who has the best college football program in Florida?" Florida State had 68 percent after 1,452 votes, with Florida barely ahead of Miami.

-- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to recommend, send an e-mail to staff writer Greg Auman at aumanac1@aol.com.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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