PITTSBURGH — The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced its 2021 class of inductees on Saturday night, and the Steelers wing at the museum in Canton, Ohio, just got a little bigger.
Legendary scout Bill Nunn and stalwart offensive lineman Alan Faneca are the newest members and will be enshrined later this summer when the Steelers play the Cowboys in the Hall of Fame game. They will be honored along with Troy Polamalu, Donnie Shell and Bill Cowher, members of the 2020 Hall class, whose ceremonies were canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nunn was the lone finalist in the contributor’s category this year, and his induction was a long time coming. The Steelers worked behind the scenes for years to get Nunn into the Hall of Fame.
It’s fitting Nunn will be enshrined with Shell, who was one of many of the great players from the Steelers dynasty of the 1970s that he discovered. It was Nunn who was in charge of finding talent for the Steelers at the historically black universities across the South, and he did it better than anyone else.
In addition to Shell, Nunn also was the point man in the drafting of two other Hall of Famers from HBCUs — Mel Blount and John Stallworth. Other Steelers from HBCUs included L.C. Greenwood, Ernie “Fats” Holmes and Glen Edwards, among others.
"You cannot write the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers without Bill Nunn," said Blount, a cornerback who was part of the 1989 Hall of Fame class.
Nunn didn’t live long enough to enjoy the honor. He died in 2014 after he suffered a stroke at the UMPC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side, where he was analyzing videotape of college players before the NFL draft. He was 89 and still contributing to the team’s scouting efforts.
Nunn came to the Steelers when he was 42 after serving as a sportswriter, sports editor and managing editor of The Pittsburgh Courier, which at the time was one of the most prominent black newspapers in the country. Nunn picked a Pittsburgh Courier All-America team and played host to an All-America banquet that brought the top black college players to the city every year.
Nunn’s connections to small black college coaches provided the inside track on so many black athletes who developed into great players for the Steelers.
“The one doggone thing I'm proud of is the way I might have been a part of opening some doors to pro football for black men, not just as players, but as coaches and front-office personnel,” Nunn told the Post-Gazette in 2007. “I've been able to see progress.”
Nunn worked for the Steelers for 46 years and is one of three people in the organization to earn six Super Bowl rings. Joe Greene and Dan Rooney are the others.
Faneca, who played for the Steelers from 1998-2007, got the call in his sixth year as a finalist. He made nine Pro Bowls and earned first-team All-Pro six times in his 13-year career. He is a member of the NFL’s 2000s all-decade team and was on the Steelers’ Super Bowl XL team. His block sprung Willie Parker on a 75-yard touchdown run, the longest rushing play in Super Bowl history that helped the Steelers secure a 21-10 victory and their fifth Super Bowl title.
The voters have been putting one offensive lineman in each year. Kevin Mawae was inducted in 2019 and Steve Hutchinson last year. Faneca and Tony Boselli were the only two linemen among the finalists this year.
