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In Compromise, Pro Football Hall of Fame Offers to let Junior Seau’s Daughter Speak at Ceremony

Junior Seau and his daughter Sydney during his induction into the Chargers Hall of Fame in 2011.Credit...Denis Poroy/Associated Press

Sydney Seau may speak after all — sort of.

Bowing to pressure from fans and the news media, David Baker, the president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, said that Sydney, the daughter of Junior Seau, one of the N.F.L’s greatest linebackers, would be allowed to speak in honor of her father when he is inducted posthumously into the Hall on Aug. 8.

The Hall of Fame said that Sydney Seau would be offered a chance to be interviewed on stage when her father’s bronze bust was unveiled. The interview and ceremony will be televised. Seau’s three sons may join their sister on stage for the unveiling, Baker said.

The Hall said Sydney would also be interviewed at a dinner for inductees on Thursday, which will be broadcast on the NFL Network. The details of the compromise were first reported by Fox Sports.

However, the Hall of Fame will maintain its five-year-old policy of not letting others give full speeches for deceased inductees. Instead, a longer-than-usual video (six minutes) with highlights of Seau’s career and comments from his family and friends will be shown before his bust is unveiled at the ceremony at the Hall in Canton, Ohio.

“Our goal is to maintain our policy regarding enshrinement speeches, but also show compassion and understanding,” Baker said in a statement.

The Hall of Fame established its video-only policy for posthumous inductions to shorten a lengthy ceremony. In 2011, when the late Los Angeles Rams linebacker Les Richter was inducted, only a video was shown.

But after The New York Times reported on July 24 that the Seau family was unhappy that Sydney would not be able to speak after being promised otherwise, the Hall of Fame was criticized by fans and the news media.

Before his death in 2012 at age 43, Seau had specified that Sydney should speak on his behalf if he made it into the Hall. In the months after Seau was chosen to be inducted, Sydney had been preparing to make a speech. She also taped an interview with the NFL Network, which was preparing the video for the ceremony.

On July 9, the Hall told Sydney Seau that she would not be able to give a speech.

A lawyer representing the Seau family confirmed that the Hall had offered Sydney a chance to be interviewed on stage.

Seau’s death has been a cause of concern for the league. In 2012, less than three years after his 20-year career ended, Seau shot himself in the chest. An autopsy determined that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head.

After years of denying a connection between head hits and brain disease, the league has spent tens of millions of dollars on concussion-related research and even more money to settle a class-action suit brought by retired players.

Separately, Seau’s family has sued the league for wrongful death. Joe Horrigan, who is responsible for staging the ceremony, said Seau’s death and the lawsuit had nothing to do with the Hall’s stance.

Sydney Seau told The Times previously that she only wanted to talk about her father and his career in her speech, not about his death and the lawsuit.

A correction was made on 
Aug. 2, 2015

An earlier version of a capsule summary with this article misidentified the date that Junior Seau will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It is Aug. 8, not Aug. 9.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section SP, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Hall Presents a Compromise to Let Seau’s Daughter Speak. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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