Tom Hanks, the Academy Award-winning actor and lifelong Oakland Raiders fan, has lent his support to the chorus urging the Pro Football Hall of Fame to change its policy and present deceased inductees with rings and gold jackets.
Ken Stabler, the quarterback who died in 2015, was inducted into the Hall last summer, an institution with a policy that only living former players receive jackets and rings.
“No football HOF ring for The Snake’s family?” the actor tweeted Monday. “That ain’t right. Throw deep, Baby.”
The controversy bubbled up late last week when Stabler’s daughter, Kendra Stabler Moyes, responded to a tweet about her father not getting a ring. Voices around the football world responded in turn.
“No way I should have my dad’s ring and Bruce Allen doesn’t have his dad’s,” Raiders owner Mark Davis told ESPN.com on Saturday, speaking of Al Davis and George Allen. Al Davis was inducted while he was alive; Allen came in posthumously. “No way I should have my dad’s ring and Junior Seau’s family doesn’t have his. Same with Dick Stanfell’s family, and Kenny’s family.”
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The policy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is that the families of deceased players receive only a patch, a policy that is coming under fire partly because of an increasing awareness of the toll the game takes. Families simply aren’t staying silent any longer, especially with Stabler, Seau and other inductees found at autopsy to have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Family members are allowed to present deceased players for enshrinement, but the policy, in place since 2010, has been to keep them from addressing the crowd in Canton, Ohio. The reasoning is that their comments often echo videos that accompany enshrinement and extend the ceremony. Sydney Seau wanted to speak about her late father at his enshrinement and a compromise was reached in which she spoke in the video. Afterward, she and her siblings were interviewed by the NFL Network.
Jack Del Rio, the Raiders coach, echoed the team’s owner Friday, urging the Hall to “do the right thing.”
https://twitter.com/coachdelrio/status/794635483661811713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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Amy Trask, a CBS analyst who worked for the Raiders for more than 25 years and is the former CEO, tweeted: “This makes no sense — it’s petty — no good reason not to give these to the families of players inducted posthumously — fix this please. It’s stunningly thoughtless to families of those who may have compromised their health to play. It’s simply dumb.”
In a statement to Deadspin, a Hall spokesman explained, in part: “[E]very living Hall of Fame member receives a Hall of Fame Gold Jacket and a Hall of Fame Ring of Excellence to wear as symbols of his personal Hall of Fame achievement. The Hall of Fame has never presented either of these two personal items posthumously.”
Stabler’s longtime girlfriend, Kim Ross-Bush, was told that the Hall has its reasons for not awarding rings and jackets posthumously. It isn’t lost on the Stabler family that nothing prevents a living player or his surviving family members from selling a ring or jacket.
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“She was told the Hall did not want families fighting over it or selling it,” Stabler-Moyes told ESPN.com. “That is the biggest cop-out — a poor excuse. It’s nobody’s business what families do behind closed doors.”
Stabler, best known for his exploits as “The Snake” with the Raiders, died of cancer at the age of 69 in the summer of 2015. Stabler-Moyes told ESPN that she and her family did receive the crest that appears on the gold jackets inductees wear.
“I guess I’m tired of being quiet,” she said. “And this is not just about my dad; it’s about all the families that are affected by this. ... The hits just keep on coming. That’s the story of my dad’s life. Just another third-and-long for him.”
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