FILE - Green Bay Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe celebrates a third quarter touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys in Irving, Texas, Nov. 24, 1994. Photo/Tim Sharpe)

CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Maybe the magnitude of the accomplishment will hit Sterling Sharpe when he walks on stage today and sees his bronze bust that will be displayed permanently in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The former Green Bay Packers star wide receiver will be enshrined into football immortality along with cornerback Eric Allen, defensive end Jared Allen and tight end Antonio Gates as the Class of 2025.

But Sharpe hasn’t been able to celebrate the honor fully because he’s been dealing with problems in his right eye. He was still recovering from eye surgery when his brother, Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe, informed him in front of television cameras that he was selected.

“I had a detached retina, so I was dealing with not being able to see,” Sterling Sharpe said Thursday. “There’s still a chance I won’t be able to see out of my right eye, so for me, I never fully got involved in the process of joy and excitement and what it means and all that because if someone would’ve asked me when I had eye surgery in October: ‘You get to choose. You can have sight and keep your right eye or you can be a Pro Football Hall of Famer.’ I would’ve chosen sight and kept my right eye.

“So I never really in this journey got a chance because I’ve had four surgeries and just found out last week I have a hole in my retina, so I’m probably set up for another surgery, I never got the joy of being able to just deal with that because I’ve been dealing with surgeries, pressure, cataract, detached retina, torn retina, now a hole in my retina.”

Health issues are nothing new for Sharpe. A neck injury cut short his NFL career after seven seasons, delaying his entry into the Hall of Fame because there always was the question of whether he played long enough.

There’s no disputing anymore. He’s in. He’ll receive his gold jacket on Friday night. Sharpe averaged 85 catches and 1,162 yards in his career, finishing with 65 touchdowns. He was named to five Pro Bowls and earned first-team All-Pro honors three times.

Sharpe and his younger brother, who was inducted in 2011, will become the first brothers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“That’s hard for me (to grasp) because where we come from, two little Black boys from Glenville, Georgia, a town of about 2,500 people, this ain’t a dream you have on the farm,” Sterling Sharpe said. “This ain’t a dream you have baling hay and corralling chickens and chasing hogs and picking tobacco. You don’t have this dream. It is definitely truly an honor, truly a blessing from God.”