Ramsey: The wait is over: Little finally going into Pro Football Hall of Fame

The second-most important player in Denver Broncos history steps out of blurry memories Saturday when he takes his rightful place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Floyd Little struggled for yards at Mile High Stadium in those long-ago days when the Broncos ranked near the bottom of the NFL, the days when each fall suffering fans could count on the Broncos stumbling to a losing season.

And yet, even as he labored for a faltering franchise from 1967-75, Little delivered magic, taking crazed routes to the end zone, reversing his field once, twice, sometimes even three times.

He ran with speed and elusiveness, blessed with a freakish sense of the whereabouts of every tackler on the field, along with surprising power, the result of weight-room fanaticism.

When Little retired, he ranked seventh on the all-time NFL rushing list (6,323 yards), and the six players ahead of him have all entered the hall.

But Little endured a long wait for his call. He suffered through a confusing, excruciating, 30-year delay before earning induction.

Saturday, the wait ends as Little joins John Elway — the Broncos’ most important player, of course — when he accepts his place in a sprawling museum a few dozen yards off Interstate 77 in Canton, Ohio.

 Little can’t bury his long wait. He wanted his mother and his two brothers to stand beside him as he gained entrance to the hall, but his call came too late. All three are dead.

“They were very, very strong advocates,” Little said, “and it would have been great to have them there with me.

“So this is somewhat of a disappointment, but better late than …”

Little’s voice had been solemn, almost a whisper, but after a long pause he turned to laughter. He’s finally grabbing what he wanted for so long, and he wants to forget those long years of pain. Nobody wanted, or needed, entrance to the hall as much as Little.

He’s a complex man with a jolly exterior that hides a sometimes seething interior.
He believes there is always someone, somewhere who doubts him, and for his entire life he’s used those doubts, real and imagined, to fuel his climb.

For once, the doubters have been silenced, and on Saturday night Little will listen to the applause he’s hungered for since his last game at Mile High in 1975.

No doubt he scaled a tall, challenging ladder to arrive where he is today.

His father died of cancer when Floyd was 6, leaving his mother Lula to raise six children in public housing in New Haven, Conn. Most children harbor rosy memories of their childhood home.

Not Floyd. He calls the projects “Hell House” and yearned, even as a child, to escape.

“I wanted to get out of high school and get a great job,” he said. “I didn’t want to wind up as a shoeshine guy. I wanted to be the first in my family to get out of the ghetto.”

He started playing football in junior high and discovered almost no could touch him, much less tackle him. The game, he decided, would serve as his escape route.

He decided to sprint straight out of “Hell House.” Each afternoon Little laced up combat boots and ran for hours around New Haven’s Beaver Pond Park.

If you’re picturing a peaceful, poetic destination with finely groomed lawns and happily relaxed visitors, stop right now.

The park offered ragged grass and the object lesson of the city jail across the street. And most visitors to Beaver Pond were, borrowing Little’s word, “derelicts.”

At times, the derelicts shouted encouragement. “You got it! You got it, Floyd! Pick it up!”

Other times, after enjoying too much Thunderbird wine, his cheerleaders turned to scoffers.

“You’ll never get out of here!” they shouted. “You’ll never make it!”

They didn’t know that’s exactly what Little needed to hear. They kept scoffing. He kept running.

And never stopped.

In 1962, Little inspired one of the most intense recruiting battles ever.

Army, then a national power, enlisted alum Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a hero of World War II, as its chief recruiter, and Little spent an afternoon with MacArthur in the general’s suite at Manhattan’s ritzy Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

But Syracuse University coach Ben Schwartzwalder used a trump card. He employed Ernie Davis, the 1961 Heisman Trophy winner, to sell the Orangemen to Little. Even MacArthur couldn’t defeat Davis.

Little scored 46 touchdowns and led the Orangemen to 23 victories in three seasons, and as his days ended in upstate New York, he formulated an ideal plan.

He wanted to move downstate and play alongside Joe Namath with the New York Jets.

Instead, on draft day 1967, he received a call from Lou Saban, the Broncos new coach/general manager.

“Congratulations, Floyd,” Saban said in his booming voice. “You’re the first-round pick of the Denver Broncos.”

“Where the hell is Denver?” Little asked, his voice sputtering. He really had no idea.

Saban offered a few basic geographic details, and advised Little it would be difficult to travel by boat to Colorado.

Little’s football life as he had known it changed with that phone call.

He was leaving one of the nation’s powerhouse college programs for a struggling franchise on the edge of the mountains. He lost 54 of his next 84 games.

Yet the Front Range embraced the leader of those losers.

Colorado had long awaited its first professional sports hero, and residents found their man in this fast, flashy back from the East.

When Little arrived in Denver, the Broncos were in grave danger of moving to Birmingham.

In 1966, the season before Little’s arrival, the Broncos averaged 27,457 fans at rundown Bears Stadium.

In 1971, Little’s finest season, the Broncos were drawing sellout crowds of 51,000-plus to state-of-the-art Mile High Stadium. Little is the main reason the Broncos became Colorado’s secular religion.

He paid a price. When Little arrived in Colorado, he stood 5-foot-11. When he retired, he stood 5-foot-10. He had literally been beaten down.

For most of his career, he was the Broncos’ only legit offensive threat. Game after game, he endured wicked beatings from defenders.

But he had a grand time anyway. He led the NFL in rushing in 1971, gaining 1,133 yards.

Now, rushing for 1,000 yards is no big deal. In the 2000 season, 23 runners surpassed the 1,000 mark.

Times have changed. In 1971, the club remained exclusive. Little was the 13th players to ever gain 1,000.

Those who saw him run at Mile High understood where he belongs in football history, but it took those who didn’t see several decades to open the doors of the Hall.

It took a long time, too long, but that doesn’t matter now.

On Saturday, Little’s epic run ends.