May 17, 2011
NEW YORK -- Former Arizona All-American Rob Waldrop has been selected to the 2011 College Football Hall of Fame Class, announced today by the National Football Foundation and its Board of Directors.
Waldrop was picked from the national ballot of 88 candidates and a pool of hundreds of eligible nominees, announced today in presenting the Football Bowl Subdivision HOF class.
The 2011 College Football Hall of Fame Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Class will be inducted at the NFF Annual Awards Dinner on December 6, 2011, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.
Waldrop joins fellow Arizona College Football Hall of Fame inductees Chuck Cecil (2009), Ricky Hunley (1998), Darrell Mudra (2000) and Jim Young (1999) in this exclusive territory. With just over 1,000 individuals in the Hall of Fame, only one percent of those who have ever played college football have been deemed worthy of this distinction.
A two-time consensus All-American during his junior and senior seasons, Waldrop was the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year, received the Outland Trophy honoring the country's top interior lineman, was voted the Top Defensive Player of the Year by the Football Writers of America (now called the Bronko Nagurski award), and was one of four finalists for the Lombardi / Rotary award honoring the outstanding lineman of the year.
During his senior season, Waldrop recorded 53 total tackles, 14 for losses, including eight sacks --a remarkable feat for an interior lineman. His play, which helped spawn the Wildcats' "Desert Swarm" nickname, was evident in the 1994 Fiesta Bowl when he helped pin Miami with its back to the goal, guiding Arizona to a 29-0 victory.
Waldrop was drafted in `94 by the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and later went on to have a successful stint with the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League.
Founded in 1947, The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame inducted its first class of inductees in 1951. The first class included 32 players and 19 coaches, including Illinois' Red Grange, Notre Dame's Knute Rockne, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Carlisle's Jim Thorpe.
