Earl Campbell: Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Address

With Introduction by Bum Phillips

delivered 27 July 1991, Canton OH

Audio mp3 of Address

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]

Phillips: Thank you. If ya'll were looking into this sun, you'd know why I'm wearing a hat. I'd like to thank the Hall of Fame for giving me the opportunity to come back up to this part of North Texas. [This isn't Texas.] Oh, it's not? There's a whole lot of people that deserve congratulations -- the Hall of Fame, the enshrinees -- but I want to send a special congratulations to the people of Canton, Ohio and the state of Ohio for that parade this morning. That was -- That was outstanding. That's the best think I've ever seen.

I've had some tough jobs in my life, but believe me, this is one of the toughest: Introduce a guy that made almost 10,00 yards, a guy that's been in every newspaper and on every TV camera for the last 30 days, a guy that's the best running back that I've ever seen in my life -- and they tell me to do it in less than four minutes. Some of his runs lasted that long.

Earl and I've been -- Earl and I've been friends a long time. He came down -- one thing I appreciate about him is his loyalty -- he came down -- he's a great hunter, great outdoorsman, great sportsman -- and he wanted to go quail hunting. So, I told him, "Okay, I'll take you over to Orange and let you go on my grandpa's place." We get over there and drive up to the ranch house. There's a whole bunch of dogs in the yard, and course they knew me and didn't know Earl. So I said, "You're gonna have to sit in the car." So I went inside and talked to my grandpa and he told me where everything was. And I got out and got back. Just as I was getting ready to go out of the house, he said, "Bum," he said, "would you do me a favor?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "On your way in," he said, "you saw that old white barn down there?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Well, that old gray mule standing out there is 29 years old." And he said, "I've raised that thing since she was a baby." And he said, "The vet told me to have to put her down, and she's really in misery and I don't have the heart to do it. Would you stop by there and put her out of her misery?" I said, "Yes, sir." So I get back in the car and we go on down the road and Earl said, "What did he say?" I thought well I'll just kind of mess with him a little bit. I said, oh so and so said we couldn't hunt. Well, he swelled up. I mean he got mad and we're going along there. We get about even with that mule. I said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to go shoot his mule."

So I -- I stop and I get out and I go over there and of course put the mule out of her misery and come back -- no Earl Campbell. About that time I hear "Boom! Boom!" and I look and here come Earl running across the hill -- said, "Bum, let's get out of here; I got his horse and his dog." And if that ain't loyalty, I don't know anything about loyalty.

 3:00

Campbell: