The 1989 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 23–24, 1989. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season.
The National Football League Draft is an annual event in which the National Football League (NFL) teams select eligible college football players and it is their most common source of player recruitment. The basic design of the draft is that each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative its record in the previous year—the last place gets positioned first. With this position, the team can either select a player or trade their position to another team for other positions, a player, or players, or any combination thereof. After each team had utilized its position in the drafting order, whether by trading it or selecting a player, a round would be complete. Certain aspects of the draft, including team positioning and the number of rounds in the draft, have seen revisions since its first creation in 1936, but the fundamental methodology has remained the same. The original rationale in creating the draft was to increase the competitive parity between the teams as the worst team would, idealistically, have chosen the best player available.
Troy Kenneth Aikman (born November 21, 1966) is a former American football quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League. The number one overall draft pick in 1989, Aikman played twelve consecutive seasons as quarterback with the Cowboys. During his career he was a six-time Pro Bowl selection, led the team to three Super Bowl victories, and was the Super Bowl XXVII MVP. Aikman was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006 and to the College Football Hall of Fame on December 9, 2008 in New York City.
Currently he works as a television sportscaster for the Fox network. He is a former joint owner of the NASCAR Sprint Cup racing team, Hall of Fame Racing, along with fellow former Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, and is a part-owner of the San Diego Padres.
The New York Mets offered Aikman a contract out of high school, but instead of playing baseball he chose to pursue football and attended the University of Oklahoma under head coach Barry Switzer.
In 1985, his first season as a collegiate starter, Aikman led the Sooners to wins over Minnesota, Kansas State, and #17 Texas in the Red River Shootout before hosting the Miami Hurricanes and his future head coach Jimmy Johnson.
Andre Previn Rison (born March 18, 1967 in Flint, Michigan) is a retired American football wide receiver who played professionally for the National Football League's Indianapolis Colts, Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders, and the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. Rison was selected to the Pro Bowl five times, from 1990–1993 and once again in 1997.
Rison won a Super Bowl championship with the Green Bay Packers in 1996, scoring the first points of the game on a 54-yard touchdown catch. He also won a Grey Cup championship with the Toronto Argonauts in 2004. He is one of the few players to win professional football championships in both the United States of America and Canada. He was released by the Argonauts during the 2005 CFL season. He holds an NFL record for scoring a touchdown with 7 different teams.
He was a star player at Flint Northwestern High School and in college at Michigan State University. As a Senior at Michigan State, Rison had 30 receptions for 709 yards and 5 TDs.
Deion Luwynn Sanders (pronounced /ˈdiːɒn/; born August 9, 1967), nicknamed "Prime Time" and "Neon Deion", is a former National Football League cornerback and Major League Baseball outfielder who currently works as an NFL Network analyst. He was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on August 6, 2011.
Sanders is considered one of the most versatile athletes in sporting history because he played two sports at multiple positions. In the NFL, he played primarily at cornerback, but also occasionally as a running back, wide receiver, kick returner, and punt returner. He played for the Atlanta Falcons, the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys, the Washington Redskins, and the Baltimore Ravens, winning the Super Bowl with both the 49ers and the Cowboys. In baseball, he played for the New York Yankees, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, and the San Francisco Giants. He attended Florida State University, where he excelled at both football and baseball.
Sanders was born in Fort Myers, Florida. He attended North Fort Myers High School in North Fort Myers, Florida, and was a letterman and credited All-State in football, basketball, and baseball. He was an All-State honoree in all three sports. In 1985, Sanders was named to the Florida High School Association All-Century Team which selected the Top 33 players in the 100 year history of high school football in the state of Florida.