Despite growing up just an hour away from Canton, Randy Gradishar never dreamed of becoming a Pro Football Hall of Famer as a kid. In fact, Gradishar never even thought about playing college football until his junior year of high school.
Growing up in Champion, Ohio, Gradishar began working at his father’s grocery store when he was 11 years old and didn’t start playing football until he was a freshman at Champion High School. His parents hadn’t gone to college, so he gave no thought to going to college himself until college coaches began recruiting him during his junior year of high school.
Unbeknownst to him, Gradishar’s high school football coach had sent his film to coaches across the country, including Woody Hayes at Ohio State, where Gradishar would become a two-time All-American and three-time All-Big Ten linebacker. Even as he excelled at OSU, though, Gradishar didn’t realize what his success as a Buckeye would lead to.
“In the end of my senior year, I wasn't even thinking of pro football, and some pro scouts came around and said, ‘Randy, you're pretty good. You could get drafted in the NFL,’” Gradishar recalled. “I said, ’Well, that's pretty cool.’ And so then I get drafted in the NFL. And it just happened. And there was no dream about it.”
Fifty years later, Gradishar will be officially immortalized as an all-time football great when he is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday as a member of the 2024 class. He’ll become the 11th Pro Football Hall of Famer who attended Ohio State as a student and just the fourth Buckeye to be in both the Pro and College Football Halls of Fame, joining Orlando Pace, Jim Parker and Bill Willis.
| Name | Pos | Years at OSU |
|---|---|---|
| CRIS CARTER | WR | 1984-86 |
| SID GILLMAN | E* | 1931-33 |
| RANDY GRADISHAR | LB | 1971-73 |
| LOU GROZA | OT/K | 1943 |
| DANTE LAVELLI | E | 1942 |
| DICK LEBEAU | CB | 1956-58 |
| ORLANDO PACE | OT | 1994-96 |
| JIM PARKER | OL | 1954-56 |
| ED SABOL | N/A** | 1935-37 |
| PAUL WARFIELD | RB/WR | 1961-63 |
| BILL WILLIS | DT | 1942-44 |
|
*Gillman is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a coach. **Sabol, the founder of NFL Films, was a swimmer at Ohio State. |
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It’s an honor that many have seen as long overdue for Gradishar, who was one of the NFL’s best linebackers for 10 years with the Denver Broncos after they selected him with the 14th pick in the 1974 NFL draft. A seven-time Pro Bowler, Gradishar unofficially accumulated a whopping 2,049 tackles in his decade in the league, making seven Pro Bowls and winning NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1978.
Gradishar didn’t start thinking about becoming a Pro Football Hall of Famer until Jay Cimino, the late former CEO at Phil Long Dealerships – a Colorado car dealer that Gradishar has worked with for the past 35 years – started campaigning for Gradishar to become a Hall of Famer. It took three-and-a-half decades for that campaign to finally lead Gradishar into Canton, but Gradishar sees divine intervention in the timing.
“He put together some men and over the last 35 years has been putting my name out there and getting it out there to possibly get selected at some point. And then now, 35 years later, that actually happened. And I always knew if it was ever going to happen, it was in God's timing. Because if you take 35 years of waiting and turn that around, it's number 53, my number,” Gradishar told Eleven Warriors. “So I just see it as when God wanted this to happen and it's finally happened now.”
While it’s been more than 50 years since Gradishar played his final snap as a Buckeye, he has fond memories of his time at Ohio State. Specifically, Gradishar is grateful for the mentorship he received from Woody Hayes, not only as a football player but also off the field, where Gradishar says Hayes emphasized the importance of education above all else.
“The big thing for Woody Hayes was always education, you know, go to class,” said Gradishar, who graduated with a degree in education. “He was certainly a great, great football coach and had a great record. And he was there for 28 years and he mentored many, many thousands of young men in his 28 years. And his real focus was really about education and get an education because you're going to leave football here pretty soon and you got to be able to do something.
“Everybody knows Woody as a coach, and him leaving his last game, the Clemson game was a pretty sad scenario for me and for many, many other people. But Woody, when you were with him on a personal basis, not on the football field, he was very personable. He would always be talking to you, he would always be asking about your mom and dad and what's going on at home and brothers, sisters, and what are you going to do after you leave Ohio State kind of thing.
“So he was a very, very personal man, and again, I don't think the public really got that or gets that from Woody because he's a football coach, and when you're a football coach, that's what you're known for. And then he and his wife, they just came alongside young freshmen and guys that were there for three or four or five years, came alongside them and made them feel very welcome. They were almost, I could call them second parents, second moms and dads, particularly Woody, the second father, the way he treated everybody.”
Randy Gradishar was once described by Woody Hayes as “the best linebacker” he ever coached. (Photo: Malcolm Emmons – USA TODAY Sports)
On the field, Gradishar remembers Hayes’ intensity but says he appreciated that style of coaching because he knew it came from a desire for his players to improve.
“The fun thing was, a lot of times for me, was to see Woody get mad and upset at practice because the offense screwed up somewhere during the practice time, and he would certainly raise his voice, for sure,” Gradishar said. “And he'd come up to some guys sometimes and walk and get right face to face, and he's right in your face and he's yelling and screaming because he wanted you to correct the problem that it was.
“He would come and congratulate you and say, hey, good block, and, you know, good job with what your assignment was. But a lot of times he would come over (with critiques) and I respected, I think everybody respected that. When he came over to you, kind of yelling and angry at you, that was in a good way because he wanted you to learn. He wanted you to grow.
“He wanted you not to make the same mistake in any particular play, and he wanted you to make sure that he got your attention by saying, ‘Yes, coach, I understand, I did the wrong thing there.’”
“As I went through and grew and grew in my four years there, I learned a lot personally, and I have a lot of great respect for Ohio State for what they provided for me.”– Randy Gradishar on his time at Ohio State
Gradishar said he felt well-prepared when he got to the NFL because of the coaching he received at Ohio State.
“It certainly wasn't a hard transition,” Gradishar said. “I learned a lot at Ohio State from a coaching standpoint, from my coaches on the defensive side, and we played a very similar defense with the Denver Broncos. And we then became that Orange Crush defense with a 34 defense, the three down linemen and the four linebackers, that was very similar to what I played at Ohio State.
“So my reads against the offense when I would read the guards or the tackles or the running backs or whoever I was to be reading in order to find the ball and make a tackle, I had a lot of exposure at Ohio State learning that. And I felt very, very comfortable when that 34 defense with the Broncos started.”
Gradishar’s fondest memories from his Ohio State career include the Buckeyes’ win over Michigan in 1972 and their victory over USC in the 1974 Rose Bowl, his final game as a Buckeye.
“When I was growing up, I didn't know anything about Big Ten football, how big that was and nationally known and all that,” Gradishar said. “So as I went through and grew and grew in my four years there, I learned a lot personally, and I have a lot of great respect for Ohio State for what they provided for me.”
His proudest accomplishment as an NFL player is also team-oriented: Helping lead the Broncos to their first-ever Super Bowl appearance in the 1977 season, which came in the franchise’s 18th season after they lost far more often than they won in their first 17 years.
“Colorado just went nuts. And everybody, no matter who you were, where you're at, for that whole year, everyone was so proud and excited,” Gradishar said. “And then, of course, we went down to Super Bowl XII and got beat by Tom Landry and Roger Staubach (in a 27-10 loss to the Dallas Cowboys). But that was just a great year for the Denver Broncos. And I'm glad to be part of that first Super Bowl history.”
As Gradishar becomes the first member of the Broncos’ famed Orange Crush defense to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Gradishar hopes his recognition this weekend leads to more recognition for his former teammates, as well.
“It's a huge blessing for me to be recognized,” Gradishar said. “I hope that through my recognition, not personally, but for the Denver Broncos Orange Crush, that maybe a few other guys may start being considered in order to have that kind of honor also.”
Although he’s from Northeast Ohio, Gradishar says he’s only been to the Pro Football Hall of Fame once – when legendary Broncos quarterback John Elway was inducted in 2004. That said, Gradishar is excited to be back in his home state this weekend and hopes to have the opportunity to reconnect with many of his former teammates, including those who he played with at Ohio State, while he’s there.
“It's very, very special, knowing that I'm from that area,” Gradishar said. “Driving through there all the time – Akron, Canton, going back down to Ohio State when I was going there – I never really paid too much attention to say, ‘Well, you know, that's the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Maybe someday I'll be in there’ or whatever. I didn't have too many thoughts of that. But finally, the reality that is happening.”
