It’s a tradition that is synonymous with football immortality. It starts with David Baker, the president and CEO of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, standing in front of a hotel door, the top of the 6-foot-9, 400-pounder’s head even with the top of the frame. All finalists for that year’s Hall of Fame class have been invited to the Super Bowl host city, and put up at a hotel.
Then, with his head slightly bowed and a smile plastered on his face, his massive right fist raps on the door in a rhythmic pattern, a life-changing four- or five-knock rhapsody that precedes the news the men on the other side have been waiting years, sometimes decades, to hear.