Former UCLA safety Kenny Easley (5) will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August. (Photo by Peter Read Miller /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)

Kenny Easley woke up in a sweat. It was 4:30 a.m. in a Houston hotel room on Selection Saturday for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The former UCLA safety already knew.

He was in.

Easley, UCLA’s legendary safety who still holds the school’s all-time interceptions record, will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 5 in Canton, Ohio. It’s been 30 years since Easley’s NFL career ended prematurely due to a kidney ailment, and after he was never considered for the Hall as a Modern Era player, the hard-hitting safety from Virginia finally made the cut as a Senior Member this year.

After the long wait, the dream Easley had in that Houston hotel room put him at ease. 

The former Seattle Seahawk had a vivid dream of the team’s four retired numbers hanging in CenturyLink Field: No. 80 for Steve Largent, No. 12 for the fans, No. 96 for Cortez Kennedy and No. 71 for Walter Jones. Easley, who wore the No. 5 jersey for most of his football career until the NFL, felt that his jersey, the No. 45, would be the fifth hang in the rafters in Seattle.

“When (Hall of Fame Executive Director) David Baker knocked on the door, it felt like it was almost meant to be for me to be one of the selections for the 2017 class,” Easley said Wednesday in a conference call.

Easley, who was elected to the Hall by the Senior Committee that only considers players whose careers ended at least 25 years ago, chose his high school coach Tommy Rhodes as his presenter.

Easley was the first player in Pac-10 history to earn first-team all-conference honors four straight years. He was a three-time consensus All-American at UCLA before getting drafted with the fourth overall pick by the Seahawks in 1981. In his injury-shortened pro career, Easley was a four-time All-Pro selection, the 1984 Defensive Player of the Year and five-time Pro Bowler. He was forced to retire in 1987 after he learned of his kidney ailment during a physical.

He will be the sixth UCLA player in the Hall, joining Troy Aikman, Tom Fears, Jimmy Johnson, Jonathan Ogden and Bob Waterfield.