New Hall of Fame

The College Football Hall of Fame is opening it's doors at it's new digs in Atlanta this Saturday. The Hall had been housed in South Bend for the nearly two decades. Not many people knew that since so few visited the place. The annual small attendance totals prompted the move to Atlanta. Dallas was in the running to host the Hall but Atlanta won. South Bend always seemed like a natural location for the College Football Hall of Fame. Notre Dame football really is college football history. If not Notre Dame, then the northeast with the Ivy League schools that started it all. Unfortunately, South Bend wasn't working. Now, it's up to Atlanta. These days the heartbeat of college football can be easily found in the football-mad regions of the SEC. And, the area does have a strong football past. It also looks like Atlanta has done an excellent job of creating a football museum that honors the past while embracing the present.

If the Pro Football Hall of Fame is best known for it's incredible bust room, the College Football Hall of Fame might become best known for it's entrance. You enter the museum through a tunnel like football player's entering the field. Photographs of the previous year's conference champions fill the walls of the tunnel. You hear the click-clack of cleats as you walk through and crowd noise intensifies as you enter the museum. What follows next is a 40-foot high wall with more than 700 helmets representing every Division I, Division II, Division III, and NAIA program. This wall sounds fantastic. It might also produce a bottle-neck of neck-strained gawkers. If you can get past this incredible wall, you can personalize your visit to the school of your choice. As you pass through the exhibits, you will receive school-specific content and activities. While I think that this is an excellent idea, I am a little skeptical. I know that I will appreciate any Cal-specific content that the Hall has for me. I also know that I don't want it at the expense of any other content. I guess that I just have to go to Atlanta and see it for myself.

Here's some of what I would find:

A 45-yard field spanning 15,000 square feet that features various activities on a daily basis. Kick a field goal, test your throwing accuracy, complete an obstacle course. A massive video screen above the field shows live games and highlights. The room will also be the site for events and receptions with a capacity of 1,450. It is one four areas that the Hall will rent out for private events.

Game Day Theater. A 150-seat theater with new HDTV technology.

Fans Game Day Gallery. You can interactively play trivia, a cheerleader challenge or even design your own marching band routine and see it play out with music.

Building a Champion Gallery. There's an exhibit devoted to coaches that innovated the game. You can have a Hall of Fame coach teach you play on video.

Game Time Gallery. An area devoted to college football's incredible passion. You can be a broadcaster and make a call from a famous play. Learn about college football's rivalries. Alabama-Auburn, Harvard-Yale, Army-Navy, Notre Dame-USC, Cal-Stanford, Grambling-Southern, Texas-Oklahoma, and Ohio St.-Michigan are on permanent display. In the "Anatomy of a Play" exhibit, you will see and hear from quarterbacks and coaches on what happens in the six seconds before the ball is snapped. A 360-degree virtual stadium exhibit allows you to be on the field at various angles at a legendary stadium, even as players and marching bands run onto the field.

The Hall of Fame. This is probably the most unique feature of the new College Football Hall of Fame. The names of the Hall of Famers are etched into glass. No plaques. No busts. Those staples are replaced by 10, 55-inch touchscreens on swivels. Depending on what's available, the content on the screen could include photos, highlights and media interviews. Several of the Hall of Famers signed off on this great change from the expected. Some found it more personal. This is another aspect of the Hall that I'll have to see to accept. I spent hours in the bust room at Canton. I could spend hours more. It's spectacular. I think that I could hog one of those 10 touchscreens for days.

The College Football Hall of Fame sounds awesome. Even the aspects of which I am skeptical could be the best parts of the place. They certainly have me intrigued as much as they have me skeptical. I was disappointed that the Hall couldn't make it work in South Bend but it definitely sounds like Atlanta did all that they could to make the new location a special one. Certainly a unique one.