Bill Nunn Jr. went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week in the same way that he lived – humble and full of praise for others.
The NFL will replay the induction ceremony for nine posthumous inductees on Saturday night, and it will show several video clips of the Steelers scout talking about how the team did “pretty well” in 1974 when it drafted five future Hall-of-Famers. He gives much of the credit, too, as he often did, to Coach Chuck Noll for developing the players Nunn discovered.
What felt unexpected about Wednesday night’s event in Canton was seeing Nunn immortalized in a bronze bust that the Hall reassured us will last for at least 40,000 years. When future generations look back at the NFL’s origin story, it will forever include Nunn’s remarkable contributions to identify Black college players who had gone unnoticed. The men drafted this weekend, and in future years, will know on whose shoulders they stand.
I will remain forever grateful to Nunn for taking a chance on meeting me and then spending hours to open up and share some of his many stories. We last talked the day before he suffered a stroke in the Steelers’ draft room before dying a week later on the eve of the 2014 NFL selection day. He talked then about how everyone is born and everyone dies – and half the stuff in between we try to forget.
I’m glad that forever now, we will have a place to remember the deeds Nunn quietly contributed to journalism, to Black culture across America, to the game of football and to the countless lives he touched. Including mine.
My book, The Color of Sundays, appears as part of the permanent Hall of Fame display about Bill Nunn Jr. 
We sat with the cutouts of Steelers Hall of Famers 
Andrew Conte 