Chuck Ealey is finally getting his Hall call.
On Monday, the decorated former Toledo quarterback was announced as one of 21 members of the College Football Hall of Fame’s 2022 class. Ealey, one of the first great Black quarterbacks in college football, was 35-0 as a starter from 1969 to 1971, leading the Rockets to three consecutive undefeated seasons, three Mid-American Conference championships, three Tangerine Bowl victories, and three top-20 national rankings.
“I was thrilled when I heard the news. It’s been a long time coming,” Ealey said. “I’m grateful to the selection committee, to the University of Toledo, and to everybody who supported my candidacy for the Hall of Fame. As I said, it’s been a long wait, but on the plus side, now my kids and my grandkids can be a part of this. If this had happened 40 years ago, then they wouldn’t have been able to share in it.”
The wait was long and arduous because of the College Football Hall of Fame’s antiquated, nonsensical rules. The National Football Foundation requires a player to have been a first-team All-American by an NCAA-recognized organization. In 1971, Ealey was named a first-team All-American by the Football News, but it was not an approved entity at the time.
A vocal campaign for Ealey’s inclusion in the Hall has gained momentum over the past decade. It grew in stature last year with the support of former NFL player and head coach Tony Dungy, who called Ealey one of his football heroes.
“Chuck Ealey was a beast,” Dungy tweeted in 2018. “He was Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson before we realized QBs like that could play in the NFL. I was in high school when he played for Toledo and he inspired me. Too bad he was a generation [too] early.”
Dungy followed up last year, surprised to learn that Ealey wasn’t in the Hall of Fame.
“I’m starting a crusade,” Dungy told The Blade.
Now, he can rest. The mission is complete.
Joining Ealey is former Toledo and Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel, who remains UT’s all-time wins leader with 73 from 1991-2000. They are the second and third Toledo connections in the Hall. Defensive lineman Mel Long, a teammate of Ealey’s, was inducted in 1998.
Pinkel was 73-37-3 in 10 seasons at Toledo. He won 67 percent of his MAC games, winning one conference championship and three MAC West titles.
In 1995, Pinkel led the Rockets to an 11-0-1 record. Toledo secured one of the program’s signature victories during Pinkel’s final season, a 24-6 triumph at Penn State in 2000. He went on to great success in 15 years at Missouri, where he’s the winningest coach in program history (118-73).
“I had such a great experience at the University of Toledo,” Pinkel said. “We ran a program with a lot of integrity and we won a lot of games. I was honored to be a part of the great tradition at Toledo. It’s also a great honor for me to be inducted in the same class as Chuck Ealey, who is without a doubt one of the all-time great college football players to ever play the game.”
Ealey and Pinkel were selected from a ballot of 78 players and seven coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision, 99 players and 33 coaches from the divisional ranks, and the NFF Veterans Committee candidates. They will be formally enshrined during the 64th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 6.
In 1971, Ealey finished eighth in the Heisman Trophy voting, becoming the first MAC player to receive votes for the prestigious award. He finished his career as UT’s all-time leader with 5,275 passing yards and 45 touchdown passes, marks that still rank in the top 10.
Ealey, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio, who now resides in Toronto, is one of four Toledo players to have their number retired. He went undrafted in the NFL, but had a prosperous career in the Canadian Football League.
Ealey was rookie of the year in 1972 and MVP of the Grey Cup after leading the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to victory.
“I lived through this thing and never was I really angry or upset,” Ealey said. “I just held back and I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. I can’t change the facts. That’s how I handled it. I didn’t want to get into a negative or a bad thing now. I just wanted to say, OK, thank you, let’s move on. It’s great for a lot of people, for the university, for my teammates, for all of us who had gone through some of this conversation. It was a good moment, to see that we got that recognition.”
First Published January 10, 2022, 8:39 p.m.
