McElhenny doesn’t believe LT deserves spot in Hall

Tim Graham

Friday, Jan. 29, 1999 | 11:28 a.m.

Hugh McElhenny would love to have faced Lawrence Taylor on the field.

But the legendary halfback hopes he never runs into him in Canton, Ohio.

McElhenny doesn't want Taylor's bronze bust anywhere near his or anyone else's at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Taylor, who in the 1980s and early '90s redefined the outside linebacker position with the New York Giants, is one of 15 finalists on this year's Hall of Fame ballot. The vote is Saturday.

"I'm going to be very disappointed if Lawrence Taylor gets into the Hall of Fame," McElhenney, a 1970 inductee, said. "He's very deserving as a football player. But he certainly isn't a credible person to be in that elite group."

Taylor was suspended once as a player for drug use. Since his retirement in 1993 he has been arrested twice for trying to purchase crack cocaine from an undercover police officer. He was arrested for being a deadbeat dad. He pleaded guilty to filing false federal tax returns. He declared bankruptcy. He has been cited three times for leaving the scene of an accident. He lost his driver's license for failure to pay parking tickets.

"I get frustrated when I read about these players who can't handle themselves off the field," McElhenny said. "It's disturbing, and I don't think it's just me. All my friends -- Y.A. Tittle, Billy Wilson, Chuck Bednarik, Frank Gifford -- that's what we talk about. That's the depressing part.

"Maybe we drank too many beers. (But) we weren't in the drug scene. You didn't read about us raping girls. I never knew anybody in all those years I played who was ever in a situation like that."

Unlike the baseball Hall of Fame, there is no citizenship criteria for election to Canton. Taylor needs approval from 80 percent of the selection committee, or 29 of the 36 voters.

"In our day, a guy like that would be blackballed," McElhenny said. "But he'll probably get in with all the political issues of today."