Ex-Packers receiving great Sterling Sharpe joins tight end Shannon as first brothers in Hall of Fame

Shannon Sharpe donned his gold jacket emblazoned with the Pro Football Hall of Fame logo at his Atlanta home last winter and awaited his brother's arrival.

Sterling ambled down the stairs and into the basement looking perplexed.

“Welcome, bro!” Shannon said.

To what, Sterling wondered, “your house?”

“To the Pro Football Hall of Fame," corrected Shannon. "Class of 2025.”

The first pair of brothers who will ever have both of their busts on display in Canton fell into each other's arms, decades of doubts dissipating in a medley of laughter and tears.

Dashed was the notion that seven stellar NFL seasons weren't enough for football immortality.

All along, the brothers figured it was Sterling who would reach Canton first. He was born three years earlier and the wide receiver had a standout career at South Carolina and then for the Green Bay Packers, who made him a first-round pick in 1988, two years before the Denver Broncos selected his younger brother in the seventh round out of Savannah State.

Sterling would start every game for seven straight seasons until a neck injury cut short his career just as he and the Packers were peaking. The green and gold would go on to return the title to Titletown behind fellow Hall of Famers Ron Wolf, LeRoy Butler, Reggie White and Brett Favre while Sterling dabbled in broadcasting before leaving football behind for the golf links.

Sterling was named to five Pro Bowls and earned first-team All-Pro honors the three years he led the league in receptions. He averaged 85 catches in his career — an unheard of number for that era and 10 more than Jerry Rice averaged in his first seven seasons.

In his last season he led the league with 18 touchdown receptions, including a trio of scores in his final game despite dealing with numbness in his arms and tingling in his neck caused by an abnormal loosening of the first and second vertebrae in his cervical spine.

He had felt increasingly bothersome symptoms over the last half of that season and he suffered what's commonly referred to as “stingers” against the Falcons in the Packers' final game at the old Milwaukee County Stadium on Dec. 18, 1994, and again six days later at Tampa, where he caught nine passes for 132 yards and three first-half touchdowns in what turned out to be his final game.

Right after Christmas, he learned he needed neck fusion surgery that would limit his head swivel, making it too dangerous to continue playing football. Upon hearing the prognosis, he stood up and shook his doctors' hands.

"I had already accomplished what I wanted to,” Sterling told NBC affiliate WIS News in Columbia, South Carolina, this spring. “... I just wanted to play, and I got to play in the NFL for seven years.”

His career cut short at age 29, his protracted wait for Canton would last 31 years.

“Sterling was supposed to be in the Hall first,″ Shannon said ahead of his 2011 induction, where he drew a standing ovation for saying, ”I'm the second-best player in my own family."

Unlike Sterling's truncated testimonial, Shannon's Canton credentials were never in question. He set the standard at tight end, going to eight Pro Bowls in 14 seasons, earning four first-team All-Pro honors and winning three Super Bowls in a four-year span, two in Denver and one in Baltimore.

He gave his first Super Bowl ring — from Denver's 31-24 win over Green Bay in 1997 — to Sterling. And he called the chance to welcome his big brother into the Hall “the proudest moment of my life.”

Despite their shared love of the game, the brothers who grew up in a tiny cinder block house in rural Georgia were different in one big way: Shannon overcame a childhood speech impediment to become one of the game's most talkative players and later one of football's most vocal commentators. Sterling preferred to hone his craft in relative obscurity and mostly avoided the public and the media.

“As a football player, I was unapproachable,” Sterling told WIS News. “I didn’t want to be approached. I didn’t want to be famous. I didn’t want to make friends. I’ve got a job to do and I’m going to do this job better than anyone else does anything else."

Butler said Sterling's media blackout was on par with his isolated nature. He just didn't let many people into his orbit.

“Sterling didn't want nobody to know what he did,” Butler told The Associated Press. “He didn't want other receivers mimicking him. His edge was his physicality and his brain.”

Butler said teammates started calling Sterling "The Hermit,” because “he just wanted to play football. He didn't want to go nowhere. He didn't want to do nothing. He'd be swiping his card to get into (Packers headquarters) at 6 o'clock when nobody's up but burglars and roosters.”

Ask him for his autograph and he'd walk right past you. Send him a letter care of the Packers and he's sign a stack of them, Butler said.

Every Tuesday, Sterling would spend his time answering fan mail, “signing 1,000 autographs,” Butler said. “I never did that. He was the only one in the building signing everything. He’s probably going to hate on me for telling that story.”

Sterling was amongst a group of wide receivers including Andre Reed and Jerry Rice that defenses began double-teaming in the late 1980s.

Sterling embraced the extra attention of the “clamp and vice” defense and actually became better for it.

“He said if two guys are doubling me, they don’t hide it,” Butler recounted. “The corner has outside leverage, the safety has inside leverage, the linebacker is in a zone. He broke it down like this: ‘When it’s a pass, I’m going to attack the worst cover guy, the safety. When it’s a run, I'm going to attack the worst tackler, the cornerback.‘ I'd never heard nothing like that. It made so much sense.

"If he’s putting pressure on the safety, running straight at him, it’s what we call a panic state. As soon as he turns around to run with you, you stop on a dime and ‘Magic’ (Don Majkowski) or Brett would throw him the ball. I’d never seen any receiver do that, where he just said I’m going to attack the weakest guy based on what the play is.”

Butler said another of Sterling's hush-hush advantages actually salvaged his own career.

Favre’s fastballs at practice were exacerbated in the winter months, so to save his hands and preserve rhythm with his quarterback, Sterling began wearing scuba diving wetsuit gloves, Butler said. With their padding and super tack, the gloves served like a catcher’s mitt. They worked out so well in the elements that Sterling began wearing them indoors, too, Butler said.

“So I went out and got me some scuba gloves like Sterling and it saved my career,” Butler said. “I started to get more interceptions. And before you know it our whole secondary was wearing them. I don’t think opponents realized it. Again, you don’t talk about it."

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

FILE - Green Bay Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe (84) heads for the end zone after pulling in a pass for a touchdown during an NFL footblal game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Sunday, Oct. 24, 1993, at Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

FILE - Green Bay Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe celebrates a third quarter touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys in Irving, Texas, Nov. 24, 1994. Photo/Tim Sharpe)

FILE - Green Bay Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe (84), chased by Phoenix Cardinals Jay Taylor, heads towards the goal line to score the first touchdown of an NFL football game in Tempe, Ariz., Nov. 18, 1990. (AP Photo/Jeff Kida)

FILE - Shannon Sharpe, left, unveils a bust of himself along with his presenter and brother, Sterling Sharpe, during the induction ceremony at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane, File)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison Friday in the first verdict from eight criminal trials over the martial law debacle that forced him out of office and other allegations.

Yoon was impeached, arrested and dismissed as president after his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024 triggered huge public protests calling for his ouster.

The most significant criminal charge against him alleges that his martial law enforcement amounted to a rebellion, An independent counsel has requested the death sentence over that charge, and the Seoul Central District Court will decide on that in a ruling on Feb. 19.

Yoon has maintained he didn’t intend to place the country under military rule for an extended period, saying his decree was only meant to inform the people about the danger of the liberal-controlled parliament obstructing his agenda. But investigators have viewed Yoon’s decree as an attempt to bolster and prolong his rule, charging him with rebellion, abuse of power and other criminal offenses.

In Friday’s case, the Seoul court sentenced Yoon for defying attempts to detain him and fabricating the martial law proclamation. He was also sentenced for sidestepping a legally mandated full Cabinet meeting, which deprived some Cabinet members who were not convened of their rights to deliberate on his decree.

Judge Baek Dae-hyun said in the televised ruling that imposing “a heavy punishment” was necessary because Yoon hasn’t shown remorse and has only repeated “hard-to-comprehend excuses.” The judge also said restoring legal systems damaged by Yoon’s action was necessary.

Yoon’s defense team said they will appeal the ruling, which they believe was “politicized” and reflected “the unliberal arguments by the independent counsel.” Yoon’s defense team argued the ruling “oversimplified the boundary between the exercise of the president’s constitutional powers and criminal liability.”

Park SungBae, a lawyer who specializes in criminal law, said there is little chance the court would decide Yoon should face the death penalty in the rebellion case. He said the court will likely issue a life sentence or a sentence of 30 years or more in prison.

South Korea has maintained a de facto moratorium on executions since 1997 and courts rarely hand down death sentences. Park said the court would take into account that Yoon’s decree didn’t cause casualties and didn’t last long, although Yoon hasn’t shown genuine remorse for his action.

South Korea has a history of pardoning former presidents who were jailed over diverse crimes in the name of promoting national unity. Those pardoned include strongman Chun Doo-hwan, who received the death penalty at a district court over his 1979 coup, the bloody 1980 crackdowns of pro-democracy protests that killed about 200 people, and other crimes.

Even if Yoon is spared the death penalty or life imprisonment at the rebellion trial, he may still face other prison sentences in the multiple smaller trials he faces.

Some observers say Yoon is likely retaining a defiant attitude in the ongoing trials to maintain his support base in the belief that he cannot avoid a lengthy sentence but could be pardoned in the future.

On the night of Dec. 3, 2024, Yoon abruptly declared martial law in a televised speech, saying he would eliminate “anti-state forces” and protect “the constitutional democratic order.” Yoon sent troops and police officers to encircle the National Assembly, but many apparently didn’t aggressively cordon off the area, allowing enough lawmakers to get into an assembly hall to vote down Yoon’s decree.

No major violence occurred, but Yoon's decree caused the biggest political crisis in South Korea in decades and rattled its diplomacy and financial markets. For many, his decree, the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea, brought back harrowing memories of past dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, when military-backed leaders used martial law and emergency measures to deploy soldiers and tanks on the streets to suppress demonstrations.

After Yoon's ouster, his liberal rival Lee Jae Myung became president via a snap election last June. After taking office, Lee appointed three independent counsels to look into allegations involving Yoon, his wife and associates.

Yoon's other trials deal with charges like ordering drone flights over North Korea to deliberately inflame animosities to look for a pretext to declare martial law. Other charges accuse Yoon of manipulating the investigation into a marine’s drowning in 2023 and receiving free opinion surveys from an election broker in return for a political favor.

A supporter of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol shouts slogans outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs and flags outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A supporter of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol waits for a bus carrying former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs as police officers stand guard outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs and flags outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A picture of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is placed on a board as supporters gather outside Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)