NFL greats Troy Aikman and the late Reggie White headlined an entire class of six members of this year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame that was announced last February. It was called the most emotional announcement for a Pro Football Hall of Fame class in history. The formal induction ceremony for the class into the Hall of Fame will be on August 5.

The other members of this year’s class are Harry Carson, John Madden, Warren Moon, and Rayfield Wright. With six people admitted this year, this class is also the largest ever admitted since 2001.

Aikman was once recognized as the NFL’s golden boy and one of the best quarterbacks of his era. He led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl titles in the 1990s. Today, Aikman is a television sportscaster for the Fox network and co-owner of the NASCAR Nextel Cup racing team, Hall of Fame Racing, along with former Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.

Nicknamed the “Minister of Defense,” White was one of the most prolific scorers in football history, be it in college, the USFL, and the NFL. White also earned the nickname from him as a reference to his evangelical Christian ordination. He died suddenly in 2004 after suffering a fatal cardiac arrhythmia caused by sarcoidosis with which he had lived for years. During the 2005 season, White’s number 92 jersey was retired by three teams.

Moon became the first African-American quarterback to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Before him, no other African-American quarterback was even close to induction. Aikman and Moon followed Dan Marino, Steve Young and John Elway in a series of great quarterbacks to make the Hall in their first attempts.

“To be the first black quarterback in the Hall of Fame, every black quarterback that played before me should share this,” Moon said. “I don’t want to make this a racial issue, but I think it’s significant. It shows that we’ve reached the top of our sport.”

And, of course, there’s Madden, the coach, broadcaster, and video game entrepreneur who holds the record for the best winning percentage of any NFL coach at 100 wins (.759). He coached the Oakland Raiders for 10 years and won the 1977 Super Bowl.