As the club gathered on Saturday night to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its back-to-back 1988/89 premierships, Dunstall, a key plank of those teams, became only the seventh person honoured with the legend tag.
He joined John Kennedy Senior and Leigh Matthews (2003), Graham Arthur (2005), Michael Tuck (2008), Peter Hudson (2010) and David Parkin (2013) in receiving the club's highest accolade.
Dunstall beat out a number of other quality candidates, including Robert DiPierdomenico, Gary Ayres, Dermott Brereton, Chris Langford, Gary Buckenara and coach Allan Jeans, to be the person named the legend from those premiership teams.
Dunstall's influence at Hawthorn has been immense.
In 14 seasons with the club between 1985-98, he played 269 games and is the third highest goalkicker in VFL/AFL history with 1254 goals.
He won four premierships, four Coleman Medals and four club best and fairest awards, and was the club's leading goalkicker for 12 seasons.
Having retired in 1998, Dunstall was named in the club's team of the century in 2001 before holding the position of interim chief executive officer in 2004, when he played a significant role in appointing Alastair Clarkson as the Hawks' senior coach.
Dunstall then moved onto the Hawthorn board, where he remained until the end of last year when the 49-year-old's term expired after the club's premiership win.
