Antonio Langham reflects on career ahead of College Football Hall of Fame induction

Alabama football legend Antonio Langham will be enshrined with some of the best to ever play the game tonight as he’s inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Langham played at Alabama from 1990-1993, becoming one of the best players in the country across his four seasons in Tuscaloosa. He was named an All-SEC selection three times, a first team All-American twice, and became Alabama’s first-ever Thorpe Award winner as the best defensive back in the nation in 1993.

He was a major piece of Alabama’s 1992 SEC and national championship team, the lone national title between the Bear Bryant and Nick Saban eras of Crimson Tide football.

Langham was an in-state player, hailing from Town Creek, Alabama. Reflecting on his career in an interview ahead of his induction, Langham spoke about how where he came from served as his primary motivation throughout his career.

“To understand where I come from, a small town in Alabama where the population is 1,100 people, I pretty much put a whole stretch of highway on my shoulders,” Langham said. “Gave a lot of people, young kids around there hope that they can get out of there and make something of themselves. To know that where I come from, success can happen no matter where you’re from. That’s what I try to get the young men that I coach to understand, no matter what your situation is, success can still happen for you.”

Langham said he received a call from Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne while at a coaching clinic to tell him the news of his selection. At first, he didn’t believe it.

“I was like ‘Man, quit playing. I’ve been on the road all morning, I don’t have time for jokes,'” Langham said. “He said, ‘No seriously, congratulations.”

Langham’s first call was to his mother, who is unable to make it to the induction due to her health, but has still found other ways to celebrate her son.

“My first call was to my mom. I told her, I said, ‘Mom, I’m in the College Football Hall of Fame.’ I felt the emotions in her, my emotions,” Langham said. “Right now my eyes are kind of watering up. My emotions haven’t really come out until now.

“She made a long post on Facebook. Everybody’s been calling to tell me what she said. She called me her legend.”

As he reflected more on his time at Alabama specifically, Langham first mentioned head coach Gene Stallings, who coached Alabama from 1900-1996, including all four years of Langham’s career.

“It’s a lot of things about ‘Bama that I could talk about, from the coaching staff that I had with Coach Stallings,” Langham said. “He called me the other day. He went on and on about how great a football player I was, not only that but how great a man I was, how he appreciated me and my leadership, the things I did for The University of Alabama.”

Most of all, Langham credited the teammates he played beside during his time at Alabama, saying he couldn’t have accomplished any of what he did without them.

“My teammates, I can’t say enough about them,” Langham said. “You line up a football, everybody says, ‘You did the work, Antonio.’ I say, ‘Well, you line me up against 11 other guys, I don’t win that football game, I’d never have a chance.’ But these guys I lined up with from ’90-’93, I told all of them, ‘We’re going in together.’ Because this is a team effort. Yeah, Antonio went out and did the work, he worked hard, but I needed 10 other guys, and here we are. I have a lot of them here.”

Langham will become the 23rd Alabama player inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Following his Alabama career, he was selected ninth overall in the 1994 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns, and went onto play seven years in the NFL.

He was also inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.

Langham will be inducted during the 66th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 10 in Las Vegas. The ceremony will be streamed on ESPN+, or with this link.

Following his induction Langham’s accomplishments along with the rest of the 2024 class will be immortalized at the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

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