College Football in Hot-Lanta

Where's Waldo, er, the Honor G of Grinnell College?

At the end of July, Anne, HBomb and Mark returned to the U.S. for a little visit.  The first stop was Atlanta to see Anne's family there.  While in that part of the country, the men folk took a side trip to the college football hall of fame.  If you ever find yourself in Atlanta with a little time to kill and have any interest in the sport, this hall of fame is well worth the trip.  Mark has been to the pro football hall of fame in Canton, Oh a couple of times and this one is much more interactive.

Upon entry, visitors register in the computer system with their favorite college football team (you can choose from any of them represented in the photo at the top of this post).  Then on each section of the hall, the exhibit will be customized to emphasize that particular team.  Mark, of course chose the mighty Grinnell College Pioneers and when he went to look at the records and conference championship archives, sure enough, the records popped right up (1998 being the last and most impressive conference championship for the school of course).

The older we get, the better we were.

Anne's brother Jim had no trouble choosing a favorite team as he is lifelong Hawkeye.  Mark and Anne's brother-in-law, Stu, chose the Iowa State Cyclones - apparently he did this to save time as he did not want to be held up at each exhibit by reading or hearing about a team that actually had "wins" or "accomplishments" to be discussed.  Eventually, Jim convinced his nephew of the virtues of the helmet with the mighty TigerHawk logo.

Passing the Hawkeye love to the next generation.

Next, the hall had an interactive exhibit.  Our group focused on the interactive "tailgating" experience, playing a little bean bag toss (Mark refuses to refer to this game as "cornhole") and getting a hot dog and some popcorn from the vendors.  There were also field goal kicking and route running areas.

Stitchy pounding a hot dog

I don't see a lot of bean bags actually in the scoring area, fellas.

The hall itself was pretty well done, with a lot of ESPN-sponsored interactive exhibits ("do your own SportsCenter" and "call famous plays on radio") and a lot of information arranged in easily accessible and entertaining formats.  It was not without controversy, however.  Upon leaving the 10 minute introductory film, which was not specific to any team, but rather emphasized the values and pageantry of college football Saturdays, Stu and Mark overheard what can only be described as a ravenously obese Tennessee Volunteers fan commenting on how the video needed to be re-done because of either too much emphasis on Alabama football or not enough emphasis on Tennessee football - his jumbled mutterings made this point unclear.  This seemed odd, but haters gonna hate, so neither of them thought much of it.  About 20 minutes later while reading an exhibit about rivalries in college football, the same old Tennessee fan walked by again still bitter about the video and with mutterings slightly less coherent but more angry.  I guess in the south, it's more than just a game.

Pretty good height for 1st and 3rd graders... also, that Bo Jackson manequin appears to be almost 7 feet with full gear on.  No wonder he smacked down the Bozz.