- Sterling Sharpe
Infobox NFLretired
|caption=
position=Wide Receiver
number=84
birthdate=birth date and age|1965|4|6Chicago, Illinois
debutyear=1988
finalyear=1994
draftyear=1988
draftround=1
draftpick=7
college=South Carolina
teams=
*Green Bay Packers (1988-1994)
stat1label=Receptions
stat1value=595
stat2label=Receiving Yards
stat2value=8134
stat3label=Touchdowns
stat3value=65
nfl=SHA489831
highlights=
* 5xPro Bowl selection (1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994)
* 5xAll-Pro selection (1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994)
*Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame
* Led NFL in receptions in 1989, 1992, and 1993
* Led NFL in receiving TDs in 1992 and 1994
HOF=
CollegeHOF=Sterling Sharpe (born
April 6 ,1965 inChicago, Illinois ) is a formerAmerican football wide receiver and currently a NFL analyst for theNFL Network . He played from 1988 to 1994 with theGreen Bay Packers .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 thebasketball and track teams. As a wide receiver at theUniversity 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 bySidney Rice . Sharpe's #2 jersey was retired by South Carolina at the end of the 1987 regular season, making him only the second Gamecock to be granted this honor while still playing.NFL career
Sharpe was the first round #7 overall draft pick by 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 in1945 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 byArt Monk in1984 . That season, Sharpe became one of only seven players in NFL history to win the "Triple Crown" at the receiver position: leading the league in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, and receptions.Don Hutson (1936, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944),Elroy Hirsch (1951),Pete Pihos (1953),Raymond Berry (1959),Jerry Rice (1990) and Steve Smith are the only other players to accomplish this feat. 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, his 18 touchdown receptions were the second most in league history at the time, 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 the first of the three he has won [http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs01/columns/garber_greg/1319763.html] , citing him as a major influence in his life by saying cquote|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. [http://www.onlinesports.com/sportstrust/creative32.html]Sharpe is currently an NFL analyst. After several years with
ESPN , he moved to theNFL 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 joinedNBC 's new NFL programming, serving as an analyst, along withBob Costas ,Cris Collinsworth , Peter King andJerome Bettis . In 2007, he left his role at NBC and was replaced byTiki Barber . He continues to work on theNFL Network mainly as an analyst on the program NFL Playbook.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.
Personal
Sharpe was the cover subject and star of the 1995
Super Nintendo game "" produced byJaleco . 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 1970s and 1980s in their playing days.References
* "Sterling Sharpe" entry at pro-football-reference.com. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/SharSt00.htm. Retrieved Dec. 2, 2005.
* "Sterling Sharpe" bio for NFL Network. http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/sharpe_sterling. Retrieved Dec. 2, 2005.Persondata
NAME= Sharpe, Sterling
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American football wide receiver who played from 1988 to 1994 with theGreen Bay Packers
DATE OF BIRTH=April 6 ,1965
PLACE OF BIRTH=Chicago, Illinois
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=
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