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Meet the Hall of Fame Class of 2001
Yary no longer borderline candidate
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Monday, August 6, 2001
Yary returns to football as Hall of Famer
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS -- Ron Yary left everything he had on the
football field -- and then he left the field in a hurry.
Few were as intense as the Minnesota Vikings' dominating
offensive right tackle from 1968-81. Few were as eager to get away
once the game or practice was over.
"As far as football, he was gung ho," coach Bud Grant said.
"Afterward, he was gone. Sometimes I didn't know if he even took a
shower. He was just gone."
Yary, 54, will take up permanence residence among the immortals
when he is inducted Aug. 4 into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in
Canton, Ohio.
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Ron, it's safe to say, was the best I played with. He was dominant. If the Vikings hadn't won those small
battles (behind Yary), the Fran Tarkentons, Chuck Foremans, Ahmad
Rashads and Sammy Whites weren't going to win the other battles. ” |
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— Stu Voigt, former Vikings tight end |
Yary is looking forward to the day with nervous anticipation. As
a youth, he said he chose football over basketball partly because
it allowed him to hide behind a helmet. Though his bust will remain
enshrined in Canton, Yary himself may be gone quickly.
"It will be a momentary, short-fused connection with my past,"
Yary said. "It will be good to get close to my past again."
Yary, who lives in Southern California, balanced his
professional and private sides well enough to be named a six-time
All-Pro.
He couldn't have it both ways. He got away from football by
working on his house, business interests or a collection of art and
leatherbound books. On the field, he had no outside interests.
"When I was there, I was all there," Yary said. "I wasn't
there just a little bit. I was intense -- that's what they say. I
didn't know I was intense. I wasn't introspective about football.
That's what I thought you were supposed to be."
Yary was involved in some classic battles against the great
defensive ends of his day, such as Jack Youngblood, Deacon Jones
and Too Tall Jones. Some of his best bouts came in practice against
Vikings teammate Carl Eller.
"That was epic," said former Vikings tight end Stu Voigt,
Yary's former roommate. "After a week against each other, the
games were a piece of cake."
Yary joined the Vikings as the first pick overall in the 1968
draft, as a bonus pick acquired from the New York Giants in a trade
involving Fran Tarkenton. He was a rangy 6-foot-6, 255 pounds. At
USC, he had won the Outland Trophy as the nation's top collegiate
lineman in 1967.
"If you saw him line up, if you just looked at him, he didn't
seem like a great physical specimen," Grant said. "He was big
enough, tall enough, strong enough. But it's when he played that
you said, 'Holy smokes, he just knocked that man backwards.' Or in
his pass protection, that his feet were too good. That's when you
saw the real Ron Yary."
Yary did not start in his first season with the Vikings. John
Michels, his offensive line coach, recalled their fear of the hyper
young player "going completely screwy out there."
Yary, who seems still upset about it, thinks he made a poor
impression in his first weeks with the Vikings because he was
turned around after preparing for the College All-Stars annual
exhibition against the Green Bay Packers. Norm Van Brocklin, the
College All-Star coach, ran the same offense as Gran'ts except for
the numbering system; Van Brocklin's odd-numbered plays went left,
Grant's to the right.
Finally unleashed in 1969, Yary started in 150 consecutive games
through 1979. The stretch included four Super Bowls among a
team-record 20 playoff games.
"Ron, it's safe to say, was the best I played with," Voigt
said. "He was dominant. If the Vikings hadn't won those small
battles (behind Yary), the Fran Tarkentons, Chuck Foremans, Ahmad
Rashads and Sammy Whites weren't going to win the other battles."
Yary says he always craved contact. Even as a 3-year-old, he
thought it was fun to jump off 10-foot decks onto sidewalks.
Getting knocked down, he said, was as much fun as knocking someone
down.
He tried to play professionally on the same emotional level.
Yary said he barely glanced at the weekly game plan and probably
spent less than 45 minutes during his career looking at playbooks.
He wasn't technically sound, according to Michels, until his final
five or six seasons.
He made up for it with his quiet, simmering intensity.
"You cannot believe how he got up for a football game,"
Michels said.
That intensity led to Yary's departure from the Vikings in 1982.
Upset by an article that said Minnesota was looking for a new right
tackle, he demanded a trade and was sent to the Los Angeles Rams.
He played one more season and retired. He called his departure the
biggest mistake of his life.
Michels, an in-your-face coach, worried for years about how
their relationship had ended. Yet, a few months ago, Yary asked him
to be his presenter at the induction ceremonies.
"To me, it's the greatest compliment ever received," Michels
said. "That just floored me."
Consider it a final knockdown on Yary's way to the Hall of Fame.
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