KNOXVILLE - Three former Vols football players will be part of the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame class which has been announced. Todd Kelly (1989-92), Terry McDaniel (1984-87) and Charlie Severance (1959-60) will be inducted on Aug.
23, 2012.
The event will take place at the Knoxville Convention Center with featured speaker Baseball Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher Phil Niekro.
Kelly was a star defensive end with the Vols in the early 1990s. He was a 1992 All-SEC First-Team selection and served as team captain for that squad which went 9-3. Kelly was selected in the first round (27th overall) by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1993 NFL Draft and went on to play with the Niners, Cincinnati Bengals and Atlanta Falcons from 1993-96. In his 46 NFL games, Kelly had 5.5 career sacks and was a part of the Super Bowl XIX title with San Francisco.
McDaniel was a 1987 All-SEC first-team defensive back with the Vols and went on to be a first-round NFL Draft pick by the Raiders in 1988. McDaniel played 11 seasons in the NFL with the L.A./Oakland Raiders (1988-97) and the Seattle Seahawks (1998). He was a five-time Pro Bowl selection (1992-96) and four-time All-Pro pick (1992-95). In 152 career NFL games, McDaniel had 35 interceptions.
Severance lettered with the Vols in 1959-60. He earned national acclaim for stopping a two-point conversion as the Vols upset No. 1 LSU in 1959. His part in "The Stop" led to a 14-13 Vol win. Severance, Bill Majors, and Wayne Grubb made the play that kept the Vols in the lead early in the fourth quarter, stopping Tiger Billy Cannon. The play is generally considered at the top of defensive plays in the entirety of Tennessee history.
(E-mail Stan Crawley at wscrawley@earthlink.net)