From Georgia farm to fame: Sterling Sharpe to join brother in Hall of Fame

Sterling, 60, had a standout career at South Carolina and was a two-time All-America selection. He was drafted in the first round (seventh overall) in the 1988 NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers. Shannon, who played at Savannah State and starred in the NFL as a tight end, was enshrined in 2011.

Sterling’s career was cut short by a neck injury. He was a Pro Bowl selection in five of his eight seasons in the NFL. He earned first-team All-Pro honors the three years he led the league in receptions. He averaged 85 catches in his career — an astonishing number for the late 1980s and early 1990s. He averaged 10 more than Jerry Rice averaged in his first seven seasons.

In 1994, his final season, he led the league with 18 touchdown receptions and was key to the early development of quarterback Brett Favre (who was traded by the Falcons to Green Bay.)

Sterling tried to play with numbness in his arms and tingling in his neck caused by an abnormal loosening of the first and second vertebrae in his cervical spine.

Shannon surprised Sterling during a visit to his home in Atlanta.

“I never had an idea or an inkling about … him having on his gold jacket and 17,000 TV people being in the room,” Sterling said. “I’m going to check on my brother to make sure that he’s OK because he’s got his hands in a lot of things. It wasn’t a shock as much as it was terrifying.”

Sterling was comfortable with his career. He was enjoying retirement and playing a lot of golf.

“When you have no expectations, what do you get?” he said. “What am I walking into? I’m going to check on my little brother, because I ain’t never heard him sound like this. I got to make sure he’s good.”

The brothers and their siblings were raised by Barney and Mary Porter. Their grandfather died when they were young and their mother in 2011, shortly before Shannon’s enshrinement.

“Our grandmother and our grandfather raised us, pretty much,” Sterling said. “They didn’t really care about the game. My best and worst day was when my grandfather died. Best day because it was the first time that I knew I was going to get a chance to play football growing up on the farm.

“My worst day was the exact same day because everything that I am as a man, I learned from him. I was 13 when he died, but I spent my entire life with him. So, I think they wouldn’t understand or appreciate the magnitude of this moment, but I do think they would have been happy that we didn’t end up in jail, didn’t end up on drugs, didn’t end up on skid row. We took the lessons that we learned from them and applied them to our lives to play football better than anyone else. That’s all we tried to do.”

In recent years, the selectors have recognized that great players, who’ve had their careers shortened by injury, are worthy to be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sterling will join the great Gale Sayers, Terrell Davis and Tony Boselli among talented players whose careers were cut short by injury.

“When I got there, of course, he was the real, one bright spot on offense,” said Mike Holmgren, who coached Sterling the final three years of his career. “He had already done some really fine things. And then while we were getting to be good, but during those developmental stages, you know, heck, he caught over 100 balls a couple years.”

Kansas City coach Andy Reid was the tight ends coach on Holmgren’s staff.

“Really, he and Jerry Rice were the two main guys in the league at that time,” Reid said. “He was first-ballot Hall of Famer if he doesn’t get hurt. He’s one of the few guys that I’ve known that he gave you confidence that he could play any position, including quarterback, on the team. He was brilliant. A brilliant football mind and tough.”