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SBJ Unpacks: David Baker Navigates HOF Through Pandemic

The pandemic caused many cancellations across sports this summer, including the Pro Football HOF induction ceremony. On the latest episode of "SBJ Unpacks: The Road Ahead," Pro Football HOF President David Baker discusses the dedication of Centennial Village as part of the NFL celebrating its 100th birthday as well as how the HOF navigated the pandemic.

On adapting during the COVID-19 pandemic:
Baker: If there’s anything that you learn from this game that we honor at the Pro Football Hall of Fame is that sometimes you’ve got to call an audible, that sometimes you’ve got to huddle up if you get tackled for a loss, you get together again, you get on the same page and you go out and fight that adversity together. That’s what we’ve done with having to postpone some of our events and not having the ability to aggregate and congregate all the fans that want to come and be a part of this.

On dedicating Centennial Village:
Baker: The good people of Ohio raised over $12.5 million to have this place that will memorialize what happened 100 years ago. It has a big-screen TV and amphitheater and the spires that replicate the Hall of Fame and a café, but a couple of the cool things it has is it has a monument to every team that ever had a NFL team. ... We have pylons for each decade and on those pylons are listed 25,844 names that are every player that played in the first century of the NFL. I think it’s quite dramatic.

On what the HOF ceremony will look like next year:
Baker: Next year what we’ll do is we will also combine it with the Class of 2020 ... and our phrase here is ‘Twice The Fun In ’21.’ It’s going to be a huge gathering here in Canton. I hope all your listeners will join us because I think it’s very, very likely we’ll have 160 Hall of Famers ... and it’s going to be the greatest gathering in the history of football. But it’ll present some logistical challenges but it certainly seemed like the right thing to do.

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