Canes Trio on College Football HOF Ballot
IRVING, Texas – The Miami Hurricanes trio of Jerome Brown, Ray Lewis and Warren Sapp are among the 75 FBS players on the 2014 College Football Hall of Fame ballot. The National Football Foundation (NFF) released the names Thursday.
Brown, who played defensive tackle from 1983-86, led the Canes to four consecutive New Year’s Day bowl games. A unanimous first-team All-America selection in 1986, Brown was a finalist for both the Outland and Lombardi trophies as a senior. He ranks 10th all-time in school history with 21 career sacks.
A 1987 graduate of The U, he founded the Jerome Brown Football Camp, a free camp for local youth in his hometown of Brooksville, Fla. The community center – Jerome Brown Community Center – in Brooksville was also named in his honor.
He was drafted No. 9 overall by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1987 NFL Draft and was a two-time Pro Bowl selection for the Eagles. His life was tragically cut short when he was killed in an automobile accident in October 1992. A member of both the UM and Florida Sports Halls of Fame, his No. 99 was retired by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Lewis was a first-team All-American and Butkus Award runner-up in 1995. He led the Hurricanes to Fiesta and Orange Bowl appearances and currently ranks sixth all-time at Miami with 388 career tackles. Following a successful career, Lewis spent 17 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, where he was a 13-time Pro Bowl selection, seven-time AP All-Pro first-team selection and two-time Super Bowl champion.
The ESPN network analyst founded the Ray Lewis Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to commit personal and economic assistance to disadvantaged youth. He is the Vice Chairman of the nonprofit United Athletes Foundation (UAF), aimed at leveraging celebrity status of athletes to impact positive change in communities.
Sapp, a 2013 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, spent 13 seasons in the NFL. A two-time All-BIG EAST selection, Sapp was awarded the Bronko Nagurski Trophy (best defensive player), Rotary Lombardi Award (best lineman or linebacker) and the Bill Willis Award (best defensive lineman) in 1994. He earned BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year honors the same year, finishing the season with 84 tackles, 10.5 sacks, four forced fumbles and three fumble recovers.
He founded the Warren Sapp Foundation, which supports the Pediatric Cancer Children’s Fund.
Ten Hurricanes have been enshrined into the College Football Hall of Fame – Bennie Blades (2006), Don Bosseler (1990), Andy Gustafson (1985), Jack Harding (1980), Ted Hendricks (1987), Jimmy Johnson (2012), Russell Maryland (2011), Vinny Testaverde (2013), Gino Torretta (2009) and Arnold Tucker (2008).
The 2014 College Football Hall of Fame Class will be announced in May and they will be inducted Dec. 9, 2014, at the 57th NFF Annual Awards Dinner at the landmark Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The inductees will be permanently enshrined in the new College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta sometime in 2015.
The University of Miami has launched the $7 million Football Victory Fund to address the most important needs of the football program. There are a variety of ways to contribute to the Football Victory Fund as well as to Hurricanes Athletics. For more information on how you can donate and details of the pending projects, please call the Hurricane Club at 305-284-6699 or visit umvictoryfund.com.
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