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| The Basketball Hall of Fame |
Again, here is where I start off by saying I'm not a big basketball fan. Pittsburgh doesn't have a basketball team, and while I enjoyed watching games while I was in college, I could really care less about the NBA and who got traded where or anything. I know more about the players because of their personal lives (and all the drama they have in them) than I do about their stats. I didn't even know the Charlotte Hornets didn't exist anymore until maybe 5 years ago (they left to become the New Orleans Pelicans *snicker* in 2002. Thank you Wikipedia!) As a kid I used to just cheer for whatever team had the cutest colors. It wasn't football, so I wasn't worried.
But, with such a cool looking building, a rich history to learn about, and a friend willing to tag along I made the trip. By far this is the most interactive non-traditional museum I've ever been to. Walk into the building and at first you think you've entered a shopping mall by mistake. It's noisy, and there are tons of kids (mostly boys sad to say) and rogue basketballs zipping around. That's because on the very first floor, just behind the admissions ticket box (that's what it looked like) there is a huge gym with swarms of kids playing basketball.
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| No, I'm serious. This is just one corner of the gym. |
Take an elevator up and you walk around a ring of knowledge with lots of photos above you of inductees (99% of whom I'd never heard of), and a timeline of basketball history with random artifacts built into display panels that circle the entire gym from above.
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| A view of the "ring of knowledge" |
Once you go full circle, you go down to the next level which is filled with historic jerseys and information about the organization and exhibition history of the sport. You start with some pretty strange-to-us looking smock sort of uniforms (especially the lady ones!) all the way up through modern shoes and jerseys worn by players active today. I was very impressed that Grambling State University (an HBCU) had not one, but TWO jerseys on display in two different galleries. Because I wasn't alone I didn't get to take notes on the photos I was taking so I don't remember WHY those jerseys were in there, but I was proud nonetheless.
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| Jersey from Grambling State University on display |
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| Early ladies' basketball uniform |
Throughout the displays (closer to the newer items) there were lots of interactives for kids. Such as testing to see if you could palm a basketball (it makes you wonder how freakishly huge these guys' hands must be in order to do so!), testing your vertical leap, and other games. It was noisy, but also really cool to see young guys no older than 12 or 13 so into the museum not even realizing they were learning something while having fun.
A little further down you get into less exciting displays that talk about media and the sport, referees, and a bit about college and high school programs that have become legendary. One part interactive there let's you record a TV news spot reading a (poorly written) script that plays back once you complete it. Proved to me that being a TV anchor isn't as easy as some would have you believe!
Once you get through all that, you have to fight your way through the gym (which SMELLED exactly like high school gym class if you can remember that) to get back out of the museum. I didn't learn a lot more about the sport than I knew coming in, but I got a deeper respect and appreciation for the sport that so many people enjoy.
More Rhode Island and Massachusetts coming up in the next few days! All of my pictures (including way more from the Hall of Fame!) are on my Facebook page. Thank you so much for reading along, and I will see you on the next adventure!
