MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Chuck Howley's long wait is finally over. Yesterday, the 86-year-old Warwood, West Virginia, native was one of three players submitted by the Seniors Committee to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
 
He joins a 2023 Hall of Fame class that also includes Seniors' nominees Joe Klecko and Ken Riley.
 
The rest of this year's class consists of offensive tackle Joe Thomas, linebackers Zach Thomas and DeMarcus Ware, cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Ronde Barber and coach Don Coryell.
 
Howley was a six-time All-Pro playing for the Dallas Cowboys, but he is best known as the answer to a trivia question. He is still the only player from a losing team to earn Super Bowl MVP honors when the Cowboys lost to the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V.
 
The two teams combined for 11 turnovers and the Cowboys were penalized 10 times in what later became known as the "Blooper Bowl."
 
But Howley played a terrific game, intercepting two passes and forcing a Johnny Unitas fumble. He didn't realize that he won the award until a reporter asked him about it in the locker room afterward and he was handed the keys to a new Dodge Charger, which he decided to give to his wife.
 
"She went out to a bridge party one night and she hit the accelerator, the tires squealed, and she brought that car right home and she said, 'Chuck, you can take it! I don't want it!'" he recalled in 2011.
 
Howley overcame overwhelming odds to become one of pro football's best outside linebackers in the late 1960s.
 
At WVU, he was a five-sport standout lettering in football, wrestling, track, swimming and diving and gymnastics, but nagging injuries kept him from earning greater glory on the gridiron.
 
A broken jaw suffered in practice wiped out a good portion of his senior year in 1957.
 
"I don't even know if we were in pads," Howley recalled, "but somehow, I stuck my head in there and caught a knee to the jaw. They decided to send me to Wheeling to have the operation, and I thought as soon as they wired my mouth shut, I could go up to Penn State and play in the game.
 
"The doctor said, 'I don't think so. Chuck, if you get hit a certain way, you're dead. You're not going to play until that jaw heals properly,'" he said.
 
Two years later, when Howley was a second-year player for the Chicago Bears, he severely injured his knee during a preseason practice.
 
"I got crack-backed when the crack-back block was still legal," Howley said. 
 
That prematurely ended his season, and more than likely, his pro career. He returned to Wheeling and was working at a gas station in 1960 when Dallas was awarded an expansion franchise and needed players to start a new team.
 
The Cowboys took his Chicago teammate Don Healy, who suggested that they look at Howley.
 
"He wasn't the sole factor, because I think the Cowboys were interested, but they did trade for me and I was really happy that they did," Howley said.
 
After playing in an alumni football game against the West Virginia varsity team in the spring of 1961 to see if his knee would hold up, he became an immediate starter for the Cowboys later that fall.
 
By 1963, The Sporting News named him to its Eastern Conference NFL squad and two years later, he earned his first Pro Bowl berth in 1965. In 1966, he was named first team All-NFL, the first of five times he was recognized through 1970.
 
Standing 6-feet-2 and weighing 225 pounds, Howley was a 10.1 sprinter in track who combined amazing power with speed and finesse. In college, he even took up gymnastics.
 
"It was just something to do," Howley explained. "When I was in high school (Warwood High), I did a lot of gymnastics at the YMCA and the PTA shows and high school type things. It was kind of a show group at the Y, and it was very interesting to me. My agility, I thought, was excellent as a result of that."
 
During his prime years with the Cowboys, coach Tom Landry had such trust in Howley that he would sometimes permit him to do some freelancing. For a coach like Landry to allow this was remarkable, considering his reputation for demanding his players adhere to his system. The running joke in Dallas was that the only thing that could screw up Tom Landry's system were his players.
 
"I think in our own ways we all had feelings for him, and we respected him as a man," Howley said in 2011. "Now, a lot of players thought he was trying to run his ideas and his religion down their throats, and they kind of resented that a little bit, but they didn't disrespect him. 
 
"But he was a great one, and he had a great influence on my career," Howley added.
 
Chuck played 15 NFL seasons before retiring in 1973 after another serious knee injury to run a successful uniform rental business in Dallas. In 1977, he was inducted into the Cowboys' Ring of Honor.
 
Today, Howley no longer does public appearances, and his son, Scott, will likely accept on his behalf when he is officially inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, on Aug. 5.
 
Howley becomes only the third West Virginia University player to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, joining Joe Stydahar (1967) and Sam Huff (1982). Earle "Greasy" Neale, who coached the Mountaineers from 1931-33, is also in Canton as a coach. He was enshrined in 1969.