Steve Bartkowski had just about given up on being named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Before he became a Falcons great and the first overall pick of the 1975 NFL draft, Bartkowski was an All-American at California, leading the country in passing yards in 1974.
“It’s just something that, it hadn’t happened in so long, my feeling was that if it was going to happen, it was going to happen long before now,” Bartkowski said.
But Bartkowski got the call last week and Tuesday was in New York for a news conference announcing his induction, along with 16 other former players and coaches.
“To be honest with you, the older I get — I’m pretty long in the tooth now — the more I appreciate things like this,” said Bartkowski, 59.
Two other former Falcons will join Bartkowski for the Dec. 4 induction ceremony in New York. Ty Detmer, who won the Heisman Trophy for BYU in 1990, was a backup quarterback for the Falcons in 2004-05. Mark Simoneau, who was the 1999 Big 12 defensive player of the year at Kansas State, played linebacker for the Falcons from 2000-02. Simoneau was the selection least removed from his playing days.
Bartkowski, one of eight members of the Falcons’ Ring of Honor and a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, said he placed the honor “really close to the top, if not at the top.” Only .0002 percent of individuals who have played college football have been inducted into the hall, now 914 players and 197 coaches.
Bartkowski’s favorite Cal memory is an unusual one. In his freshman year in 1971, Cal was placed on NCAA probation for playing an academically ineligible player that led to the coaching staff being replaced. He cherishes his teammates’ response.
He remembered it as, “I just think, the kind of sucking it up and bonding together and that sort of ‘Yes, we can’ attitude, we can still be a good football team and have a great experience.”
His offensive teammates included future first-round draft picks Chuck Muncie and Ted Albrecht, as well as Wesley Walker, a two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver.
“I had some great teammates at Cal, and they made me better,” he said.
The other members of the class: LSU tailback Charles Alexander, Purdue halfback Otis Armstrong, USC split end Hal Bedsole, Notre Dame tight end Dave Casper, Rice quarterback Tommy Kramer, Syracuse wide receiver Art Monk, Colorado State defensive back Greg Myers, UCLA offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden, Texas Tech defensive tackle Gabe Rivera, Air Force safety Scott Thomas and Colorado guard John Wooten, along with coaches Phillip Fulmer (Tennessee), Jimmy Johnson (Oklahoma State and Miami) and R.C. Slocum (Texas A&M).
As was reported last week in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the hall is planning its opening in the fourth quarter of 2014. It originally was scheduled to open later this year after moving from South Bend, Ind. In February, Atlanta Hall Management, the group planning and building the attraction, had no firm date on groundbreaking or completion and was reassessing all of its plans. However, the management team presented a new plan to the National Football Foundation, which owns the rights to the facility, in April that earned the foundation’s approval.
John Stephenson, Atlanta Hall Management’s interim chief executive officer and president, said that the management team has worked “to ensure the revenue model is sound and positive and self-sustaining.”
Asked how certain he was that the hall will open in 2014, Stephenson said that the hall management board, building committee and National Football Foundation find that the 2014 plan “is reasonable, is reachable and is the right plan, and we’ve all agreed to do it.”
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