The Pro Football Hall of Fame only is a two-hour drive from Pittsburgh. The Steelers honored some of their own outstanding alumni last week when they announced the newest members of the team’s Hall of Honor.
Four-time Super Bowl champion guard Gerry (Moon) Mullins and the late center Ray Mansfield, who started on two of those Super Bowl teams in the ‘70s, were named as members of the Hall of Honor’s 2023 Class.
In addition, LB James Harrison, who made arguably the greatest play in Super Bowl history when he scored on a 100-yard interception against the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII, also is included in this star-studded group.
The final honoree is a guy named Smith…defensive end Aaron Smith, who played 13 seasons (1999-2011) and helped anchor a defense that won two Super Bowls during his career. It may be easy for casual sports observers to forget a player named Smith but the Steelers and their fans appreciated his contributions during his time with the team.
Smith was drafted without a great deal of fanfare on the fourth round of the 1999 Draft out of Northern Colorado.
“Being drafted where I was, I just kind of had to earn it,” Smith said last week after the Hall of Honor announcement. “I was a guy who just always felt like I had to work. Then it becomes who you are. I knew I needed to hone my skills, get better and better, and then as younger guys came along, keep teaching them how to work.”
The 47-year-old Smith soon will join Steelers legends Joe Greene and L.C. Greenwood, Dwight White and Ernie Stautner (all three who, unfortunately, have died) as the only defensive linemen in the Hall of Honor.
“To be in the Hall with some of the best players in not only Steelers history, but league history, is very humbling,” says the modest Smith. “The culture of our teams when I played, especially the defense through those years, we were just a defense that ground it out. We may not have been the prettiest nor the fastest, but we were going to fight to the end and work all day and night to win.”
We at NFL Alumni salute all four of our new Hall of Honor brothers in Pittsburgh. We look forward to seeing them and their families on October 29 when they are honored on the field at halftime of the Steelers home game against Jacksonville.
