Post by TheShadow on Feb 3, 2007 9:43:15 GMT -5
www.sunherald.com
He'd be only 2nd pure punter, if selected
By LARRY HOLDER
The frequent discussion of whether former Southern Miss punter Ray Guy should be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame will occur this morning in Miami.
Without the list of star-studded names, this year may be the former Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders punter's best chance of having his bust displayed in Canton, Ohio. It's the first time Guy has been a finalist in four years.
Former Raiders kicker Chris Bahr, who won two Super Bowls with Guy in the early 1980s, watched Guy revolutionize the punting position.
"I think he should get in because it's one of the positions of the game," Bahr said, who is in Biloxi for the Isle of Capri Casino's Super Bowl party on Sunday. "He changed punting. I actually heard somebody the other day that Ray should have been in the Hall a long time ago. He's the greatest punter that I've ever seen.
"You should reward the person for the position. You can't bunch everyone in with, say, the quarterbacks or an offensive lineman. That's a position and there's only one true kicker in the Hall and that's Jan Stenerud."
Bahr said Guy, after whom the nation's top college-punter award is named, could set the tone of a game with one punt.
"I got to see him every day and I played with him for seven years and worked with him in practice," Bahr said. "He did change the way people thought about punting at that time. He could change field position. The way he punted was that if the other guy was off, we were in real good shape and you might gain 10 or 15 yards and that's a first down or two. He should be in."
Former Baltimore Colts punter and Pascagoula resident Ray Brown knows a thing or two about punting; he played the position in the 1958 NFL championship game known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played."
"He's probably the finest pure punter that I could think of," Brown said. "If anything has held him back, it may be that he was just a pure punter.
"Had I a vote I would say put him in there."
The other finalists include DE Fred Dean, DE Richard Dent, DE L.C. Greenwood, G Russ Grimm, G Gene Hickerson, WR Michael Irvin, G Bob Kuechenberg, OL Bruce Matthews, WR Art Monk, WR Andre Reed, TE Charlie Sanders, former commissioner Paul Tagliabue, LB Derrick Thomas, RB Thurman Thomas, LB Andre Tippett, CB Roger Wehrli and T Gary Zimmerman.
