Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project: 1962 FINAL VOTE

1962 Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project Class.

Here we are!  Again!!

If you have been following our Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project, you know that we have asked the rhetorical question: What if the PFHOF began in January 1946?

After soliciting and obtaining a passionate group of football fans and historians, we sent out a ballot for a Preliminary Vote, in which we asked each voter to give us 25 names as their semi-finalists and 5 in the Senior Pool. Following that, we asked the group to vote for their 15 Finalists in the Modern Era and 3 in the Senior Category. The final stage was to vote for their five Modern Era inductee and one Senior inductee.

This is the result of the seventeenth official class;

Below are the final results of this project based on 32 votes,

Remember that the group took a vote in “1961”, and we have reverted back to the top five candidates entering the Hall PROVIDING THEY MAKE 50% of the vote.  This will be put to a vote again in “1963”.

This is for the “Modern Era”

*Bold indicates they have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Class of 1962:

This is for the “Senior Era”,

*Bold indicates they have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Class of 1962, though no one made the mandatory 50% threshold to advance.

About the 1962 Inductees:

Tom Fears E, RAM 1948-56: Inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project in 1962 on his 1^st Ballot.  Inducted into the actual Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1970.

Tom Fears was the first NFL player of note to be born in Mexico. The former UCLA standout played all nine of his NFL seasons with the Los Angeles Rams. Fears was initially pegged to be a Defensive Back, but he blossomed on the offense, where the end helped usher in more of a passing attack.

As a rookie, Fears would lead the NFL with 51 Receptions, and he was the league leader again in 1949 with 77, which would then be an NFL record.  That mark would last for only one season when it was broken by Fears himself when he had 81 Receptions for a league-leading 1,116 Yards.  He was named a First Team All-Pro that year.  Fears never had a season that productive again, but he proved to be a vital component of the Rams Championship season of 1951.  He had helped Los Angeles reach the title game the previous two seasons, but in this game, he had a 73 73-yard reception that broke the tie and led them to victory over the Cleveland Browns.

Dante Lavelli E, CLE 1946-56: Inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project in 1962 on his 1^st Ballot.  Inducted into the actual Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1975.

Dante Lavelli played for Paul Brown at Ohio State, where the duo won the National Championship in 1942.  Lavelli entered the U.S. Military in World War II, and when the conflict ended, he rejoined Brown, who built the Cleveland Browns of the new All-American Football Conference.

Along with Mac Speedie, Lavelli was a star at End, leading the AAFC in receptions (40) and receiving yards (843) in the league's first year.  Lavelli was a consistent producer and excellent blocker, and he played a large part in why Cleveland won all four AAFC Titles.  Cleveland was one of the teams that joined the NFL when the AAFC merged with the senior league, and they continued to dominate, winning the NFL Championship in 1950, 1954, and 1955.  In the NFL era, Lavelli was a three-time Pro Bowler and was an instrumental cog in Paul Brown's machine.

Doak Walker HB-DB, DET 1950-55: Inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project in 1962 on his 2^nd Ballot.  Inducted into the actual Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986.

What is it about the Detroit Lions and their star players retiring early?  Doak Walker did just that as after six seasons he called it a career, but really, and as he stated after he retired, what else had he left to prove?

Walker, who was such a star in college at SMU that the award for the best college running back is named after him, transferred that skill to the Detroit Lions, where he made an immediate impact.  Walker was a Pro Bowler five out of six of his years and was a four-time First Team All-Pro.  Walker was also used as the Lions Place Kicker and would lead the NFL in Points Scored twice (1950 & 1955), and also anchored Detroit to two NFL Championships (1952 & 1953).