Charles Woodson's football career came full circle Sunday night, close to where it all started.
Woodson took the stage in Canton, Ohio, to be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Raiders legend was presented by his mother, Georgia Woodson.
No. 24 was enshrined 129 miles south of his hometown of Fremont, Ohio – where he won the state's Mr. Football award in 1994. Woodson would go on to win a Heisman Trophy, a Jim Thorpe Award, an NFL Defensive Player of the Year and a Super Bowl. The nine-time Pro Bowler stills owns two Raiders career records for forced fumbles (18) and pass deflections (84).
"A game that you used to sit down and watch as a kid, and it seemed so out of reach. All the sudden you get there, you play your time and then they tell you, 'You know what, you're good enough to be amongst the greats.' It doesn't get better than that," Woodson said prior to his induction.
Woodson has received a massive amount of support and salutations on being inducted into the Hall of Fame, including from quarterback Derek Carr, who played with Woodson for two seasons in Oakland.
"I think we all are, at some point, a fan of somebody and when you get to meet them, it's pretty cool," Carr said. "C-Wood, I can't limit his leadership to just when I played with him. He still is a leader to me. He still texts me. He still calls me. He'll call me out and say, 'Hey, do this.' And he'll still tell me when I'm doing a great job.
"I can't limit his leadership, again, to just the confined time. He's still a leader and a big brother to me. I'll always be thankful to him because, and he gets mad when I say this, when I was six years old, I was pretending to be him. The fact that he's in my life right now is pretty cool."
Woodson is the 12th Raider to be inducted in his first year of eligibility, and the third Heisman winner drafted by the Raiders to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Now the kid from Ohio takes his place in football history forever.
