Leo Joseph Nomellini was a Hall of Fame

Pro Football Hall of Fame

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...

 American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 player with the San Francisco 49ers

San Francisco 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...

. He was born at Lucca

Lucca

Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...

 in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. He was a two-time All-American at the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

 and the 49ers' first-ever NFL draft choice in 1950.

Nomellini played every 49ers game for 14 seasons, 174 regular-season and 266 pro games in all. During his career he played both defensive and offensive tackle, winning all pro honors at both positions. He was selected to the All-NFL team six times, two years on offense, four years on defense. Nomellini was named to the NFL's all-time team as a defensive tackle.

During the off-season Nomellini often wrestled professionally as Leo "The Lion" Nomellini.

Championships and accomplishments

• NWA Minneapolis Wrestling and Boxing Club - American Wrestling Association
  American Wrestling Association
  The American Wrestling Association was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that ran from 1960 to 1991. It was owned and founded by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo...
  
  
• AWA World Tag Team Championship
  AWA World Tag Team Championship
  The American Wrestling Association World Tag Team Championship was professional wrestling world tag team championship in the American Wrestling Association from 1960 until the promotion folded in 1991.-History :...
  
   (1 time) - with Wilbur Snyder
• NWA World Tag Team Championship (Minneapolis version) (3 times) - with Verne Gagne
  Verne Gagne
  Laverne Clarence "Verne" Gagne , is a retired American professional wrestler, football player, and professional wrestling trainer and promoter. He was the former owner/promoter of the American Wrestling Association , based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was the predominant promotion throughout...
  
   (2) and Butch Levy (1)

• NWA San Francisco
  National Wrestling Alliance
  The National Wrestling Alliance is a wrestling promotion company and sanctions various NWA championships in the United States. The NWA has been in operation since 1948...
  
  
• NWA World Tag Team Championship (San Francisco version) (4 times) - with Hombre Montana (1), Enrique Torres
  Enrique Torres
  Enrique Torres was a Mexican-American professional wrestler, the oldest three Torres brothers in wrestling, and a major star in the late 1940s and 1950s.-Personal Background:...
  
  (2), and Rocky Brown (1)

External links

• Pro Football Hall of Fame: Member profile
• http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE6D91131F934A15753C1A9669C8B63 New York Times Obit