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Nervous anticipation Vikings' Yary returns to football as Hall of Famer
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Ron Yary left everything he had on the football field -- and then he left the field in a hurry. Few were as intense as the Minnesota Vikings' dominating offensive right tackle from 1968-81. Few were as eager to get away once the game or practice was over. "As far as football, he was gung ho," head coach Bud Grant said. "Afterward, he was gone. Sometimes I didn't know if he even took a shower. He was just gone." Yary, 54, will be inducted Aug. 4 into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Yary is looking forward to the day with nervous anticipation. As a youth, he said he chose football over basketball partly because it allowed him to hide behind a helmet. Though his bust will remain enshrined in Canton, Yary himself might be gone quickly. "It will be a momentary, short-fused connection with my past," Yary said. "It will be good to get close to my past again."
Yary, who lives in Southern California, balanced his professional and private sides well enough to be named a six-time All-Pro. He couldn't have it both ways. He got away from football by working on his house, business interests or a collection of art and leatherbound books. On the field, he had no outside interests. "When I was there, I was all there," Yary said. "I wasn't there just a little bit. I was intense -- that's what they say. I didn't know I was intense. I wasn't introspective about football. That's what I thought you were supposed to be." Yary was involved in some classic meetings against the great defensive ends of his day, such as Jack Youngblood, Deacon Jones and Too Tall Jones. Some of his best bouts came in practice against Vikings teammate Carl Eller. "That was epic," said former Vikings tight end Stu Voigt, Yary's former roommate. "After a week against each other, the games were a piece of cake." Yary joined the Vikings as the first pick overall in the 1968 draft, a bonus pick acquired from the New York Giants in a trade involving Fran Tarkenton. He was a rangy 6-foot-6, 255 pounds. At Southern California, he won the Outland Trophy as the nation's top collegiate lineman in 1967. "If you saw him line up, if you just looked at him, he didn't seem like a great physical specimen," Grant said. "He was big enough, tall enough, strong enough. But it's when he played that you said, 'Holy smokes, he just knocked that man backwards.' Or in his pass protection, that his feet were too good. That's when you saw the real Ron Yary." Yary did not start in his first season with the Vikings. John Michels, his offensive line coach, recalled their fear of the hyper young player 'going completely screwy out there.' Yary, who seems still upset about it, thinks he made a poor impression in his first weeks with the Vikings because he was turned around after preparing for the College All-Stars annual exhibition against the Green Bay Packers. Norm Van Brocklin, the College All-Star coach, ran the same offense as Grant's except for the numbering system; Van Brocklin's odd-numbered plays went left, Grant's to the right. Finally unleashed in 1969, Yary started in 150 consecutive games through 1979. The stretch included four Super Bowls among a team-record 20 playoff games. "Ron, it's safe to say, was the best I played with," Voigt said. "He was dominant." Yary says he always craved contact. Even as a 3-year-old, he thought it was fun to jump off 10-foot decks onto sidewalks. Getting knocked down, he said, was as much fun as knocking someone down. He tried to play professionally on the same emotional level. Yary said he barely glanced at the weekly game plan and probably spent less than 45 minutes during his career looking at playbooks. He wasn't technically sound, according to Michels, until his final five or six seasons. He made up for it with his quiet, simmering intensity. "You cannot believe how he got up for a football game," Michels said. That intensity led to Yary's departure from the Vikings in 1982. Upset by an article that said Minnesota was looking for a new right tackle, he demanded a trade and was sent to the Los Angeles Rams. He played one more season and retired. He called his departure the biggest mistake of his life. Michels worried for years about how their relationship ended. Yet, a few months ago, Yary asked him to be his presenter at the induction ceremonies. "To me, it's the greatest compliment ever received," Michels said. "That just floored me."
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