CLEVELAND — Seven new players joining the Pro Football Hall of Fame and one of them is tied to Ohio. One of this year’s inductees is Randy Gradishar, raised in Champion, a city in Trumbull County. 

What You Need To Know

  • Randy Gradishar is being inducted in the 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class

  • He's an Ohio native and an Ohio State Buckeye alum, and went on to play for the Denver Broncos

  • Gradishar joins six other former players to this year's draft class

“Very sheltered type of community and we didn’t even have football until I was in 9th grade, and so I thought I was better in basketball and baseball and then all of a sudden football came along,” he said. 

Gradishar was working at his dad’s grocery store in high school when he got the call that would change his entire life.

“The principal called and said ‘well Randy there’s Coach Woody Hayes here, he’d like to talk to you. Can you come up here?’ And I said well, sure. What was I going to say, no? So I hung up the phone and I turned to my dad and said, ‘who’s Woody Hayes?,’” he said.

Hayes was the head coach at Ohio State at the time and that’s where Gradishar continued his football career, playing linebacker. Then he was drafted by the Denver Broncos in 1974 and went on to be a part of the defense best known as the “Orange Crush." Rich Desrosiers with the Pro Football Hall of Fame explained that the “Orange Crush” was a big part of NFL’s history.

“You can’t tell the story of the NFL without talking about the Orange Crush defense. Well, there was no one in the Pro Football Hall of Fame from that era from Denver and as people realized as time was going by what a big oversight that was, they said this is the guy who needs to represent that team in the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” he said.

Gradishar explained when he found out he was going to be a part of this year’s draft class, it was a dream come true for him. He said he’s been waiting for 35 years. The official enshrinement ceremony is Saturday.