If you’re a South Carolina football fan “of a certain age,” you should go to YouTube and search for “Shannon Sharpe,” “Sterling Sharpe” and “Pro Football Hall of Fame.” You might want to have tissues handy, too.
In a heart-warming, two-minute-plus video, Gamecocks legend Sterling Sharpe arrives at the home of his “little brother” and descends into the basement man cave, where he finds Shannon – clad in his gold Hall of Fame blazer – waiting to inform Sterling of his upcoming induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“Welcome, bro,” Shannon says, to which an obviously confused Sterling replies, “To your house?” It quickly is made clear what the moment is about, and both men soon share memories, and tears.
“All those nights in the 1,000-square-foot home (where the brothers grew up in Glennville, Ga., raised by their grandparents), all those prayers that Granny and (their sister) Libby and so many people prayed – we didn’t even know God was listening,” an emotional Shannon says. “To have this moment – and I’ve had some great moments – this is the proudest moment in my life.”
Sterling, equally emotional, responds, “I felt like that when you went in (to the Hall in 2011), you know I’m not a crier, but when you said you were in, and that weekend we had in Canton (Ohio, site of the Hall inductions) … man, there’s nothing topping that,” which Shannon disputes. “You had to do it first,” he says.
Sterling, grinning, replies, “I finally get to follow you on something.”
From his home in Fairfax, Va., Brad Edwards – former USC teammate of Sterling and nine-year NFL veteran safety with Minnesota, Washington and Atlanta – watched that video multiple times, and confesses he, too, needed a tissue. “I had a few tears, for sure,” the NFL Alumni Association’s CEO since 2022 said. “I felt like he had earned it long before now.”
In the years since retirement, Sharpe seemed penalized by voters for a shorter-than-usual career due to injury. Another South Carolina product, baseball’s Jim Rice, also had to wait to join his hall of fame because of a relatively brief time at the top. In Sharpe’s case, that always bothered Edwards.
“When you earn something like this, and it takes a while to get it, it’s like getting your degree and not getting the diploma,” he said.” I told Sterling last April (at the S.C. Football Hall of Fame ceremony in Greenville), ‘”You belong.’”
Sharpe and other new Hall members will be inducted in Canton in August, and Edwards in his Alumni Association role will be there to congratulate all, but especially his friend and former teammate. Like Sharpe, who enters via a senior category – and who declined to speak for this story, citing his recovery from a recent medical procedure – Edwards has waited for that day a long time.
How long? The 5-foot-11, 202-pound wide receiver retired from the NFL in 1994. His story over three decades since has had many twists and turns … and Edwards was unexpectedly a part of the defining moment of Sharpe’s injury-shortened career.
That 1994 season – his seventh with the Packers, during which he had racked up 595 receptions, 8,134 yards and 65 touchdowns – Sharpe was 29 and arguably the NFL’s best receiver, in the prime of his career. On Dec. 18, the Packers faced the Atlanta Falcons in Milwaukee’s County Stadium. On defense for the Falcons was Edwards.
His memory of the critical play remains vivid. “(The Packers) were coming back to the same play they’d had success on, different formation but same play,” Edwards said. “They had run a stretch play off-tackle, with Sterling in the slot blocking, and he gets leverage on the flat defender – me. The next play, he lined up on the other side with the tight end outside to the right.
“(Packers quarterback) Brett Favre audibled, and I made a funny face because I knew what was coming. Brett saw that and he laughed. Soon as the snap, I needed to run up and apply pressure to Sterling so he can’t create a lane” for a running back.
Edwards paused. “(On film) it looks like we barely hit each other, but I saw stars and I thought, ‘Sterling’s gonna be pissed at me.’ Then I turned back and saw him on the ground.”
The injury to Sharpe was the last play of his career, though ultimately not the cause of his retirement. Doctors would discover an abnormality in the top two vertebrae of his neck that required career-ending surgery.
Had he continued to play, Sharpe likely would’ve gotten to the Hall of Fame the minimum five years after retirement, rather than 31 years later. But he also might’ve wound up a quadriplegic, or worse.
“I’ve thought of that, but I’ve rarely said it,” Edwards said. “I was thankful he wasn’t running downfield where someone got a running start and really hit him.” At the time, though, Edwards went through emotional hell.
“Yeah, that (the final play of Sharpe’s career) has never been lost on me,” he said. “I don’t know if I was ever the same player after that. The reality of what that did to him … 100 percent, I felt guilty.”
If he worried Sharpe held him responsible, though, Edwards was quickly corrected by his old teammate. “I was able to see him on the sidelines after the game, but he always brushed (the hit) off,” he said. “He told me, ‘Don’t spend any time on that.’”
Since that day, the two cross paths frequently, most recently at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, and “I can’t remember even once where there wasn’t an embrace, ‘great to see you,’ an acknowledgement of our (USC) ties,” Edwards said. “I never felt anything other than that from Sterling.”
Much of it, he said, goes back to their years with the Gamecocks, when USC coached by the late Joe Morrison became potent on offense and defense. Edwards credits Sharpe’s abilities for that, and for making the USC defense – and him – better, too.
“I owe him for making me a better player; he was a central part of why I developed into an NFL player,” Edwards said. “His encouragement, even when he was beating me one-on-one in practice every day … that gave me confidence when I got into the NFL.
“Sterling’s work habits were incredible. He never missed a practice or weight-room session, and he had a high level of intensity. He had that (Michael) Jordan-like competitive demeanor.”
Post-NFL, Edwards worked in college athletics administration at his alma mater from 1999-2006 and later ran the athletics departments at Newberry, Jacksonville and George Mason University before taking his Alumni Association position. Sharpe became an analyst with the NFL Network and helped quench his competitiveness by playing celebrity tour golf. Teamed with then-Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier, the duo twice won the coach-and-former-athlete Chik-Fil-A Peach Bowl challenge tournament.
Come August, Sharpe and Edwards will converge on Canton: one to become half of the Hall of Fame’s only “brother act,” the other to pay homage to a friend of 40 years. No doubt, there will be stories told at the induction, and Edwards has one ready.
“Our rookie season (1988), Sterling missed the first 5-6 games with injuries, so he didn’t play the first time we (Vikings) faced them,” Edwards said. “Our second game vs. them, we had the No. 1 defense in the NFL, and our secondary coach asked me, ‘Tell me about this Sharpe kid.’
“I said, ‘Well, he’s pretty amazing. All I know is, our zone defenses should roll his way and double-cover him.’ The coach gave a shrug, as if to say, ‘He can’t be that good.’
“So we didn’t do that, and Sterling caught three touchdowns. The next time we played them, we double-covered him.”
Even then, Edwards knew: Sterling Sharpe was a Hall of Famer. It just took time for the rest of the NFL to figure it out.