News
John Randle: From nothing to Canton
05 Aug 10
He wasn't even expected to stick in the NFL, but former Viking John Randle -- raised by the stern hand of his mother, Martha -- is entering the Hall of Fame.
By MARK CRAIG, Star Tribune
Mumford, a quiet little town on the fertile soil of central Texas, is known for producing cotton, grain and a Pro Football Hall of Famer who grew from nothing into everything he wasn't supposed to be.
John Anthony Randle was born Dec. 12, 1967, the youngest of three boys belonging to Martha Randle, a large Christian woman and a single mother who didn't spare the rod. John's father, Edward Wilson, a mechanic in nearby Hearne, lived with his other family and has been no part of John's life to this day. John hasn't spoken to Wilson since 1995.
"Ninety percent of who I am is because of my mom," Randle said. "We had nothing. But she never gave up."
Neither did her sons. Dennis, 50, works in Hearne. Ervin, 47, played eight seasons for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs.
And John, 42, is in Canton, Ohio, where Saturday he'll become only the 14th undrafted player to be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"It's one of the great stories in the NFL's history," said former Vikings linebacker Eddie McDaniel.
In 1990, 28 NFL teams drafted 332 players over 12 rounds. They also overlooked Randle, the undersized defensive end out of Texas A&I University, an NCAA Division II school that's now Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
"I was supposed to last three weeks in training camp and be cut," Randle said. "I never forgot what that felt like."
Randle lasted 11 seasons in Minnesota and three more in Seattle before walking away to be husband to Candace, father to newborn twins Ryann and Jonathan, and Medina's most avid 10-handicap golfer. He took with him the league record for sacks by a defensive tackle (137 1/2), six consecutive first-team All-Pro selections and a spot on the 1990s NFL Team of the Decade.
The Randle boys are together in Canton this weekend. Martha will be there in spirit. Three years ago, while in the hospital recovering from a stroke that took the use of her left arm, Martha was making plans to go home when a second stroke killed her.
"I miss her," Randle said. "There's not a day goes by I don't think about her or what the four of us went through."
Small-town poverty
Mumford is a 176-person speck along Farm to Market Road 50 in a region called the Brazos bottom because of its proximity to the Brazos River. There's no stoplight, one store, a cemetery, cotton for as far as the eye can see and little else.
In the middle of Mumford, about 200 yards off the highway, is a small, white three-room house sitting on cinder blocks. Built decades ago for the summer help who worked in the cotton fields, it had an outhouse, no indoor plumbing, an aluminum roof, thin wood walls, no insulation and a kitchen so small that Randle could extend his arms and nearly touch the walls on both sides.
There was a wood stove in the living room and one bed that the three boys shared. The wash "room" was a tub hanging on a rusty nail on the back of the house.
"We called it the No. 10 [gallon] bath tub," Dennis said. "You got the tub off the nail, brought it into the kitchen and mom would warm the water on the stove."
Martha earned $23 a week as a maid. She also worked the cotton fields in the summer, making $3.75 an hour. John often worked alongside her when he wasn't playing football at Hearne High School. Mumford only had an elementary school at the time.
One day, tired from having to always hitchhike 12 miles home from practice, Randle came home early and told his mother he quit the football team so he could hang out with friends. Martha made him go back.
"My mom was 6-1, about 210 pounds, tough and fast," Ervin said. "You didn't go against her. You didn't have a say. She said it, and it was done."
Robert Davis, the former football coach at Hearne High, said the Randle boys never caused trouble because, "Mrs. Randle did a great job being a mother and a father to those boys. You couldn't have built a better person than John Randle."
“People would look down on us, and we even had cousins who would visit us just to see just how rough we really had it," Randle said. "But I wouldn't go back and change a thing because it all played a part in who I am today."
