Visiting the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, is a dream come true for football fans like the duo we followed into the museum during our recent visit there.
"Could you take a picture of Tom and me?," one of them asked me, handing me his camera so I could snap a couple of photos of the two buddies in front of the statue of the legendary Jim Thorpe in the museum's two-story entrance rotunda.
Tom excitedly regaled his companion with football facts, figures and lore as we ran into them several times throughout the museum. It's a scene I saw replayed numerous times as fans came across the jersey of a favorite player, watched video clips of especially memorable plays, browsed at one of the many computer stations with easy-to-navigate touch-screen menus to access information, or just let themselves get happily lost in football's great moments recreated by the museum.
I'm a big hockey fan, so I really do get the appeal of the museum and felt some of the excitement created throughout the museum with its interactive and immersive approach to interpreting and sharing football's history.
Engaging in the football fan experience started at the front door, where you're asked about your favorite football team (yes, I'm such a homer that I answered "Detroit Lions"!).
Canton looms large in early football history, and football is still a huge part of the culture in this part of Ohio.
Jim Thorpe was a 1912 Olympic decathlon champion and the first real name athlete to play pro football. Thorpe was exceptionally talented in several sports, even playing professional baseball for six seasons, but football remained his true passion.
Thorpe signed with the Canton Bulldogs in 1915 at the then-huge salary of $250 per game, leading the team to unofficial world football championships as a player-coach in 1916, 1917 and 1919.
The Bulldogs became one of the founding members of the American Professional Football Association (the predecessor to the NFL) in 1920, and Thorpe became the organization's first president.
It makes sense, then, that Canton became home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.
The Hall of Fame and museum opened with 17 inductees in a 19,000-square-foot building with two rooms. The iconic "orange juicer" rotunda gives the building its unique look from the outside, and it makes for a dramatic entrance with its spiral ramp and the dome's colored light lines faintly resembling the stitching on a football.
The museum increased to 34,000 square feet in 1971 as its yearly attendance topped 200,000 for the first time. It expanded to 50,500 square feet in 1978, and again to 83,000 square feet in 1993.
Museum officials recently announced yet another expansion with a plan to bring the museum to a total of 124,000 square feet.
The museum's "Future 50 Project" is a two-year, $23.6 million expansion scheduled for completion in time for its 50th anniversary in 2013. Major components of the project include a 10,800-square-foot research and preservation center, relocation of the main entrance, and retrofitting of the iconic rotunda and outfitting the rest of the building with modern environmental controls to better regulate temperatures and humidity throughout the galleries.
We saw the first evidence of the expansion during our visit there in May as our greeter showed us plans for the new project and construction workers scurried around the parking lot. The museum plans to stay open throughout the expansion with minimal, if any, disruption for visitors.
Even as the museum looks to the future, one of its main missions is to celebrate football's past and the people who played an important part in football's growth as an important part of American culture.
The Hall of Fame gallery is a key part of this mission, honoring 267 individuals (as of 2011) for their contributions to football with an impressive array of bronze busts.
Utah sculptor Blair Buswell is responsible for many of these startlingly life-like sculptures, painstakingly creating nearly 70 likenesses of the Hall of Fame inductees since 1983. Sculptor Jack Worthington created 144 of the busts in earlier years.
The 2011 class of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees are defensive end Richard Dent, running back Marshall Faulk, linebackers Chris Hanburger and Les Richter, cornerback Deion Sanders, tight end Shannon Sharpe, and founder of NFL Films, Ed Sabol.
Canton goes all-out for the inductee enshrinement each year, throwing a festival spanning nearly two weeks and drawing an expected 700,000 visitors with events like fireworks, an international drum corps competition, concerts, parade, rib cook offs, hot-air balloon fest, and enshrinement ceremonies where incoming inductees unveil their bronze likenesses and receive gold Hall of Fame jackets.
The 2011 festival runs from July 28 through August 9. Check the Pro Football Hall of Fame site for schedule and ticket information.
Other museum galleries include an exhibit about African-American football pioneers, a gallery of artifacts from Hall of Fame members, and exhibits about the modern football era and leagues beyond the NFL.
The Superbowl trophy was the star of the Superbowl-oriented displays, drawing awed fans to this symbol of many players' ultimate goal.
And, yes, this hockey fan admits to feeling a little of the same sense of awe seeing the Superbowl trophy that I felt when I've seen the Stanley Cup.
Check out the museum's lower level for interactive computer gaming lounges, the Tailgate Snack bar, and a massive pro shop featuring everything from football jerseys and T-shirts, to bobble-head dolls and nutcrackers, to one-of-a-kind memorabilia from all of the NFL's 32 teams.
There is also a field and small picnic area on the grounds where fans can play catch or unwind with a snack.
Want to learn more about the area's football history? Check out Akron-Canton Football Heritage by Thomas Maroon, Margaret Maroon, and Craig Holbert.
(Note: While an ongoing NFL lockout, as of this writing, may affect the Hall of Fame football game, traditionally played at Fawcett Stadium next to the museum during the festival's final weekend, the rest of the festival and enshrinement activities will go on as scheduled)
Thanks to the Canton-Stark County Convention & Visitors Bureau for their assistance with planning our recent visit to Canton and arranging for comped media passes to the museum.
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