Randall McDaniel heads to Hall of Fame, Class in tow

In this Dec. 26, 1990 photo, Minnesota Vikings lineman Randall McDaniel (64) leads Vikings running back Herschel Walker (34) through a hole against the Los Angeles Raiders in an NFL football game. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Marlin Levison)

In this Aug. 18, 1999 photo, Minnesota Vikings guard Randall McDaniel, right, is shown during an NFL football practice in Mankato, Minn. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Carlos Gonzalez)

In this July 16, 2009 photo, former Minnesota Vikings lineman Randall McDaniel talks with the media in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Jerry Holt)

In this Dec. 14, 2006 photo, former Minnesota Vikings lineman Randall McDaniel works with a second grade reading group known as the Green Reading Group at Neill Elementary in Crystal, Minn. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Elizabeth Flores)

In this Dec. 14, 2006 photo, former Minnesota Vikings lineman Randall McDaniel, right, works with second-grader Cora Norberg, 7, on her advanced math at Neill Elementary in Crystal, Minn. McDaniel will be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 8, 2009, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Elizabeth Flores)

Randall McDaniel still looks as if he could lower his 6-foot-4, 275-pound frame into that strange, off-balance stance and line up at left guard, poised to plow into the guy on the other side.

Fitting with his preference to be in the background during a 14-year NFL career along the relative anonymity of the offensive line, he's now a full-time basic skills instructor at an elementary school in a Minneapolis suburb spending his time with second-graders born far too late to have seen his success with the Minnesota Vikings.

In the classroom, he's known simply as Mr. McDaniel.

After a league-record 12 straight trips to the Pro Bowl and seven times as an Associated Press first team All-Pro, McDaniel is bound this weekend for Canton, Ohio, to join the game's greats.


"A lot of the kids figured out I used to play football," McDaniel said in a recent interview with The AP. "Once the Hall of Fame announcement came out, they were all like, 'Wow, you were really good!"
McDaniel and another Hall of Fame guard, Bruce Matthews, are the only two NFL players who appeared in every game during the 1990s.

He was athletic, taking part in baseball, basketball and track as a kid and arriving at Arizona State as a tight end, before blossoming into a guard who was so quick he sometimes outpaced the running back he was pulling for downfield. The Vikings chose him with the 19th pick in the first round in 1988.

"He'd block the hell out of you," said motormouth former Buccaneers defensive tackle Warren Sapp, who faced McDaniel many times but never was able to distract with his infamous trash talk. "I would either drag you into talking with me or I would make you hate me talking at you so much that I knew it bothered you. I couldn't do that to him. He wouldn't talk and wouldn't let me know that it was bothering him. He'd just keep playing, keep blocking."

Here's how it started: Teammate Todd Kalis accidentally rolled into McDaniel's knee early in his second season with Minnesota, and he was supposed to be out for a month.

Well, McDaniel's replacement was struggling during a game two weeks later, and offensive line coach John Michels screamed at him to take his place. Wearing a bulky brace, McDaniel couldn't get his leg to bend the way he needed to set up in his stance.

So he improvised, turning his left leg out and laying it straight and as low as he could with his ankle essentially flat against the turf.

"I thought I was just going to try it for that game," McDaniel recalled, "but then the defensive linemen made a comment to me: 'I have no clue what you're doing. I can't tell if you're pulling, passing or coming at me.' I thought, 'Heck, I'm never getting out of this.' It never stopped me from doing what I needed to do."

Matt Birk, now a six-time Pro Bowl center with the Baltimore Ravens, learned a lot from McDaniel during his first two years with the Vikings -- including some stern advice.

"One day I was screwing around and imitating his stance," Birk said. "He said, 'Don't you ever try to do that again, because you can never do what I do.' So I never tried that again."

The value McDaniel has long had for education will be evident at this weekend's induction ceremony: He invited O.K. Fulton, his former athletic director and assistant principal from Agua Fria Union High School in the Phoenix area, to introduce him.

Whether it's helping kids at Hilltop Primary School or organizing community-service outings for area middle-schoolers with his wife, Marianne, McDaniel is just as busy as he was as a player.

"I was always one of those people that led by example. The best way to show people how to do things is to get out there and do it yourself," said McDaniel, who's now 44.

Simone Reed struggled with reading in third grade, when McDaniel worked in her classroom. He gave her a math tip, too: Eight times eight equals 64, his old uniform number.

"He was always willing to give you a hand to do whatever you wanted to do. He just wanted to help you, even though he was a football star," said Reed, who -- 10 years later -- is headed to Southern Illinois University to study film.