We’ve known about a series of brass plaques and
faded photographs honoring Michigan sports legends that line a couple of
largely deserted hallways in Detroit’s Cobo Hall for quite some time.
I took my camera to the North American International
Auto Show earlier this year, and I took a detour to wander down the halls
housing the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame (MSHOF) plaques on the way back to the
parking lot from the auto show.
I snapped a few shots of the forlorn hallways, but
the garish florescent lighting and faded posters didn’t present an exciting
photo opportunity.

Maybe it’s fortunate that I did snap those photos,
though, as the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame’s plaques may soon no longer call
Cobo Center their home. Plans call for the removal of the plaques whenever the
convention center finally undergoes badly needed renovations.
Each two-foot-by-two-foot plaque weighs nearly 50
pounds. The halls housing the plaques since 1964 cannot hold all 270 of the
organization’s honoree plaques, and about 50 of them are already in storage.

Finances create a challenge for the organization as
it continues to seek a 30,000-square-foot home in downtown Detroit to house the
hall. The group opted to discontinue creating plaques for new hall of fame
inductees more than a year ago to concentrate on raising money for a modern sports
shrine with sound, video and other interactive elements.
Finances also forced the MSHOF to indefinitely
postpone their February 2009 dinner honoring 2008 MSHOF inductees that included:
Flint Southwestern and University of Michigan football and baseball star Rich
Leach; Detroit Red Wings co-owner and youth sports supporter Marian Ilitch;
owner of the NHL Carolina Hurricanes and Junior Major Plymouth (MI) Whalers
hockey teams Peter Karmanos; and NASCAR team owner Jack Roush.
The group announced the planned plaque auction for
June 15 of this year, only to postpone the proposed sale when state officials
discovered that the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame’s state license to solicit
charitable donations and federal financial disclosure paperwork were not
up-to-date.
Critics questioned the planned auction and wondered
if the MSHOF could continue to exist without definite plans for a physical
location.

The MSHOF reportedly owes its genesis to the brain
behind annual Michigan Week, which is a unified campaign to promote tourism in
the state. Don Weeks, the Michigan Economic Development director who pitched
Michigan Week to the state government in 1954, came up with the idea for a
Michigan Sports Hall of Fame that same year with George Alderton, the sports
editor of the Lansing State Journal. The two men came up the idea to honor
Michigan sports figures and personalities during a conversation at a barbershop
and passed it along to friends at Michigan State University.
Today, notices announcing the MSHOF postponed
induction dinner and delayed auction remain on the group’s Web site, and the
link for the MSHOF 2009 mobile exhibit doesn’t work.
Michigan, and Detroit in particular, has a great
sports tradition. People here are passionate about their sports teams. When our
teams and heroes do well, that acts as a powerful force to unite the state in
pride and enjoyment—especially in tough times.

It’s sad to see the plaques languish while their
fate hinges on legal paperwork and a sorry economic climate. We can only wonder
what happens, or doesn’t happen, next.
© Dominique King 2009






























