Sandy Stephens was always cognizant of his status and the responsibility that carried. He wasn't just quarterbacking the Gophers -- he represented something bigger.
"We lived in a glass house. We were playing not only for our team and our family but for others, too," said Bobby Bell, Stephens' teammate on Minnesota's 1960 national champion. "Sandy knew he was playing for black players down south, who didn't have a chance to play football."
That he succeeded so memorably, becoming the first black quarterback selected to an All-America team, made Stephens an obvious choice for the College Football Hall of Fame, Bell said. And on Tuesday, that recognition finally came, albeit nearly 11 years posthumously.
"It's overdue. I feel like it's been an oversight," said Bell, who was elected himself in 1991. "But I'm tickled to death that I played with him, and I'm thrilled that he finally got elected."
He wasn't the only one.
"They're jumping for joy in Minneapolis, and back in Uniontown," said Judge Dickson, who went to high school in the small southwestern Pennsylvania town with Stephens and was his roommate at Minnesota. "Nobody would have been prouder of it than Sandy, and I'm just ecstatic about it."
Stephens, who died in 2000 at the age of 59, will become the 19th Gopher to be inducted into the South Bend, Ind., museum, and the fourth from Minnesota's 1960 national championship team. Those Gophers became the first to play in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2, 1961, losing to Washington 17-7 but fulfilling Stephens' boyhood ambition to play on college football's biggest stage.
Stephens guided the Gophers to a return trip -- and a 21-3 victory over UCLA -- 12 months later. Stephens threw for 75 yards and rushed for 46 yards and two touchdowns in that game, his final one as a Gopher, and was named the Player of the Game. He was elected to the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1997.
