Sterling Sharpe

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Sterling Sharpe
Date of birth April 6, 1965 (age 41)
Place of birth Flag of United States Chicago, Illinois
Position(s) Wide Receiver
College South Carolina
NFL Draft 1988 / Round 1/ Pick 7
Career Highlights
Pro Bowls 5
Honors Green Bay Packers HOF
Stats
Statistics
Team(s)
1988-1994 Green Bay Packers

Sterling Sharpe (born April 6, 1965 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former American football wide receiver who played from 1988 to 1994 with the Green Bay Packers.


[edit] Early Life

Growing up, Sharpe lived in Georgia with his grandmother and siblings, one being his brother, NFL Pro-Bowl tight end Shannon Sharpe. He attended Glennville High, playing running back, quarterback, and linebacker and was a member of the basketball and track teams. As a wide receiver at the University of South Carolina, Sharpe set school records with 169 career receptions and 2,497 receiving yards and a since-broken record of 17 career touchdowns. He also set the school record for single-season receiving touchdowns with 11, which was broken in 2005 by Sidney Rice.


[edit] NFL Career

Sharpe was the first round draft pick of the Packers in 1988 and had an immediate impact on the team. In his rookie season he started all sixteen games and caught 55 passes. His sophomore season he led the league with 90 receptions and was the first of the Packers to do so since Don Hutson in 1945 and broke Hutson's record of receptions and receiving yards in a season.

A few years later, in 1992, Sharpe and the new quarterback, Brett Favre, teamed up to become one of the top passing tandems in the league. In the final game of that season he and Favre hooked up for Sharpe's 107th reception of the season which broke the NFL's single-season receptions record, set by Art Monk in 1984. In the 1993 season Sharpe subsequently broke his own record, with 112 receptions; this also made him the first player to have consecutive seasons catching more than 100 passes. In 1994 he totaled the second most receiving touchdowns in a single season at 18, behind only Jerry Rice's 22 in 1987.

Sterling Sharpe's tenure at wide receiver was cut short by a neck injury suffered during the 1994 season, ending a career in which he was named an All-Pro five times (1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, and 1994). Since he was unable to continue playing, and was not on the team to get a Super Bowl ring in 1996, his brother Shannon gave him one of the three he has won [1], citing him as a major influence in his life by saying

“ The two people who influenced me the most, good or bad, are Sterling and my grandmother. Everything I know about being a man, about football, everything I know about sports, pretty much in life, is because of those two people.[2] ”

Sharpe is currently an NFL analyst. After several years with ESPN, he moved to the NFL Network in time for the 2004 season, while continuing to do occasional work for ESPN as a color commentator. Starting in the 2006 season, he joined NBC's new NFL programming, serving as an analyst, along with Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Peter King and Jerome Bettis.

His younger brother Shannon was one of the NFL's top tight ends from the 1990s through the early 2000s. Shannon retired in 2003 and once again followed in his brother's footsteps, becoming a sportscaster.

Sharpe currently resides in the Wildewood subdivision of Columbia, South Carolina. He is a budding amateur taxidermist, specializing in creating hybrid animals out of multiple specimens. One of his creations, a Ratturtle, is a tribute to two high school friends who attened the University of Maryland (Nicknamed the Terrapins) and Florida A&M University (nicknamed the Rattlers)[3].

Sharpe was the cover subject and star of the 1995 Super Nintendo game Sterling Sharpe: End 2 End produced by Jaleco. Sharpe also appears in the video game NFL Street 2 as a member of the NFL Legends team a team depicting NFL Legends of the 70's and 80's in their playing days.

[edit] References

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