U.Va.'s Ralph Wilson Jr., Hall of Famer

   Checking in from Canton, Ohio, where Norfolk's Bruce Smith isn't the only man with a Virginia connection entering the Pro Football Hall of Fame tonight . . .

    Buffalo Bills' owner Ralph Wilson Jr., 90, is a graduate of the University of Virginia. The only owner in the franchise's history, Wilson founded the Bills when the American Football League formed in 1959. Wilson became a huge force behind not only keeping the AFL afloat -- he loaned money to other AFL owners to help in hard financial times -- but also in creating the AFL's 1970 merger with the NFL.

    Wilson is actually from the Detroit area; his father was a wealthy insurance executive, and father and son later owned a small share of the Detroit Lions. But when the NFL spurned Wilson Jr.'s attempt to buy into the NFL, he cold-called Lamar Hunt, who was in the process of creating the AFL to compete with the established league. Offered a choice of cities, Wilson chose Buffalo and has sustained the team ever since in one of the NFL's smaller markets. Smith was part of the franchise's most notable era, the early '90s when the Bills went to four consecutive Super Bowls, but lost them all. They remain the only team to play in four Super Bowls in a row.

As for the Virginia connection, Wilson left Detroit and attended U.Va, graduating in 1940. He went to law school at the University of Michigan and then served with the Navy in World War II before entering the family insurance business and later expanding into other businesses.

   At Virginia, Wilson endows the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Jefferson Scholarship for students from Western New York.

Along with Smith and Wilson, the new football hall inductees are Randall McDaniel, an offensive lineman who spent most of his 14-season career with the Minnesota Vikings; defensive back Rod Woodson, a 17-year veteran known primarily for his 10 seasons wtih the Pittsburgh Steelers, and for being named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary team; the late Dallas Cowboys receiver Bob Hayes, who died in 2002 at age 59, and the late Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas, who died in a car accident after the 1999 season at 33.

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