We spent the morning of Saturday, August 14, 2010 at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. Whereas the Baseball Hall of Fame is neatly nestled into the idyllic hamlet of Cooperstown, NY, the Basketball HoF is basically a strip mall on the interstate. On the positive side, there was ample free parking :-)
Urban planning aside, the inside of the Hall was awesome. It stretch across all forms of basketball -- NBA, WNBA, college, high school, international -- they have it all.
It is situated in Springfield, as this is where Dr. James Naismith invented the game in 1891 at the local YMCA. Naismith went on to coach Kansas' college basketball team, and even attended the 1936 Olympics, which included Basketball as an official sport. Remarkable!
I thought my Dad might enjoy seeing Pistol Pete Maravich's LSU jersey, and his "floppy socks". Pete Maravich averaged 44.2 points per game in college, over 3 seasons. I think it's safe to say that record will never be broken. Anyone putting up those kind of numbers today almost certainly leaves college for the NBA immediately.
There was an entire display dedicated to all-things-related-to Michael Jordan. There's no question that Jordan was most certainly the consummate basketball player in history.
It was also interesting to see a complete set of each model of Air Jordan shoes ever made. I recognized a few of those, having had a couple of "Jordans" growing up.
There was an excellent exhibit on the USA Olympic Teams -- some of the best sports teams ever assembled.
Here's how my 5'8" frame fairs against the one of the tallest (Manute Bol, 7'7") and one of the shortest (Muggsey Bogues, 5'3") NBA players of all time.
And here's Kim's "wingspan" compared against Boston Celtic Kevin McHale...
Oh, and Shaq's shoes are just ridiculous.
Finally, we walked around the upper most level, which details the careers of the members of the Hall of Fame. Interestingly, there was a running timeline of pop culture and history, intertwined with basketball history. Kim says she enjoyed that timeline more than the basketball one :-) Oh well....
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