Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame voters selected exactly sixteen names including fifteen position winners and one special category reserved for Jim Thorpe. Fifteen of the chosen athletes had competed during at least twenty of the league's prior fifty years.
Pro Football Hall of Fame voters gathered in 1969 to choose the greatest players from the first half-century of professional football. The committee traveled to each franchise city across the National Football League to cast their ballots for this historic list.
Jim Thorpe received a unique designation that set him apart from every other athlete on the 1969 roster by standing alone as the designated legend. Voters honored his legacy by describing him as the star that never diminishes regardless of how many decades passed since his playing days.
The voting process also identified two runners-up for every single position on the field. Joe Schmidt and Clyde Turner were selected as linebackers who narrowly missed the final roster alongside Ray Nitschke while Herb Adderley and Jack Butler received recognition as cornerbacks behind Night Train Lane.
Eleven players from the 1969 roster made the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team announced in 2019. Elroy Hirsch, John Mackey, Cal Hubbard, Chuck Bednarik, and Emlen Tunnell joined the earlier seven on that expanded list.