Artist Tuck Langland shows how he crafts molds for his bronze sculptures inside his home in Granger.SBT Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN
Charlie Sanders' Hall of Fame bust was sculpted by Tuck Langland. Photo provided by Pro Football Hall of Fame
•
•
Former Detroit Lions tight end Charlie Sanders died recently at the age of 68 after a battle with cancer, but his bronze bust at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, will forever serve as a reminder of Sanders' greatness.
That bust — pictured next to Sanders in newspapers across the country after his death — is the work of Granger artist Tuck Langland, an Indiana University South Bend professor emeritus of sculpture whose work appears in public places locally and internationally.
Every one of the 306 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame has a bronze bust housed in Canton. In addition to creating the Sanders bust in 2007, Langland has sculpted Hall of Fame busts for linebacker Harry Carson of the New York Giants in 2006 and the late football pioneer Fritz Pollard in 2005.
Blair Buswell, the lead sculptor of the Hall of Fame busts, called Langland in 2005 and asked him to help with some of the busts.
“I’ve known Tuck for a long time. He has done some great sculptures," Buswell said in a phone interview. "I thought it’d be great to have him try and do a bust for the hall, so he did it for a few years."
Langland spoke of the challenges sculpting the busts presented for him.
Copyright © 2024, South Bend Tribune