



Super Bowl-winning coach Mike Holmgren and prolific receiver Sterling Sharpe and advanced to the final stage of voting for the 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame class.
Holmgren, a San Francisco native who began his coaching career at Bay Area high schools, was picked as the lone finalist in the coaching category and Ralph Hay, who helped found the NFL more than a century ago, was the finalist in the contributor category. Sharpe was picked as one of three finalists in the Seniors category for players whose career ended in 1999 or earlier, along with Maxie Baughan and Jim Tyrer, in voting results announced Tuesday.
The five will be grouped together for voting by the full selection committee in January. Voters can pick three of the candidates, meaning a maximum of three can reach the 80% threshold needed for induction. If no one gets 80% of the votes, then the leading vote-getter will get into the Hall.
The selection committee will vote separately on 15 finalists from the modern era, with the 2025 inductees being announced during Super Bowl week in New Orleans in February. Ex-49ers Rickey Watters and Anquan Boldin are among the 25 semifinalists in that category.
Senior semifinalists who did not make the cut to finalists include quarterback Jim Plunkett and cornerback Lester Hayes, who each won two Super Bowls with the Raiders; and running back Roger Craig, who won three with the 49ers.
Holmgren, who was an assistant coach at San Francisco’s Abraham Lincoln High, his alma mater, then Sacred Heart Cathedral and San Jose’s Oak Grove in the 1970s, was one of the game’s most influential offensive coaches, including with his time as an assistant on two Super Bowl champion teams in San Francisco.
He went on to coach Green Bay for seven seasons, winning a Super Bowl following the 1996 season. He coached 10 years in Seattle and finished with a 161-111 record, going to three Super Bowls overall. The 2024 San Jose Sports Hall of Fame inductee was also the offensive coordinator at San Francisco State for the 1981 season before leaping to BYU and eventually the pro ranks.
Sharpe had a short but productive career for the Green Bay Packers from 1988-94. His best season came in 1992, when he became the sixth player to win the receiving triple crown, setting set an NFL record with 108 catches for 1,461 yards and 13 TDs.
He broke his own record with 112 catches in 1993 and led the NFL with 18 touchdown receptions in his final season, 1994, before a neck injury cut his career short.
Sharpe was a three-time All-Pro and had 595 catches for 8,134 yards and 65 TDs. He trailed only Jerry Rice over his seven-year career in receptions and TD catches.
Baughan was one of the top linebackers in the game in the 1960s for Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Rams. He helped the Eagles win an NFL title as a rookie in 1960 and made nine Pro Bowls in a 10-year span with one first-team and five second-team All-Pro selections.
Tyrer was a six-time All-Pro and member of the AFL all-decade team for the 1960s as the left tackle protecting Len Dawson on the Kansas City Chiefs. He won three AFL titles and one Super Bowl with the Chiefs franchise before ending his career with Washington in 1974.
Tyrer was considered a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame at the time of his retirement.
But shortly after he was picked as a finalist for the first time, Tyrer shot his wife in a murder-suicide in September 1980. Tyrer had been dealing with depression and severe headaches that experts now believe might have been CTE, the degenerative brain disease that has been found in many former NFL players who endured repeated blows to their heads in their career. CTE can be diagnosed only posthumously.
Tyrer didn’t get voted in that year and wasn’t nominated again until this year.
Hay owned the Canton Bulldogs from 1918-22 and hosted the meeting the led to the formation of the NFL. He beat out a group of semifinalists that included six-time Super Bowl champion owner Robert Kraft.