House that Naismith Built
This is my latest entry for Perkolators. Enjoy.
Of all things originating in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts- Dunkin Donuts, the American Revolution, birth control, etc - none is so universally accepted and loved as the game of basketball. So when my roommate Jeremy suggested we go to the Basketball Hall of Fame I agreed faster than you could say peach basket peach basket. Springfield is about a 2-hour drive from Boston including a breakfast stop at McD’s on the mass pike. Say what you want about the Golden Arches, they still have the best fast food breakfast hands down. I had been to the Hall of Fame as a kid but not since it was redone in 2002. What follows are some highlights and lowlights from a Perkolators perspective (keep in mind I have work experience at the Boston Children Museum, Old North Church, Davis Farmland and Megamaze, and the National Yiddish Book Center so I have a bit of a clue in terms of tourism/visitor service).
Here’s Jeremy outside the Hall of Fame. He’s a little punchy after being in the car for 2 hours (that explains why he parked on the sidewalk).
The Basketball Hall of Fame is conveniently located in Springfield off of I-91 about 10 minutes from the Mass Pike. From the street the Hall of Fame is an impressive structure that looks like a cross between Space Mountain, Epcot center, and a Basketball. Once inside the Hall of Fame has a central axis of a basketball court appropriately called Center Court. You take an elevator up to the Honors ring (3rd floor) then work your way down to the ground floor. On the Honors ring they have a picture and a blurb of every single inductee into the Hall of Fame. It’s pretty impressive. All inductees in the honor ring get the same amount of blurbage and some players have artifacts displayed (jerseys, shoes, etc.) After spending 30 minutes or so walking around the Honor ring it becomes quickly apparent there are a crapload of inductees you’ve never heard of. Fun Fact- There are 4 teams inducted to the HOF. They are the Buffalo Germans, the New York Rens, the Harlem Globetrotters and of course the original Celtics.
Here is a picture of the original Celtics. They have two players inducted into the Hall of Fame, Joe Laphick and Nat Holman. Holman was later the coach of the 1950 CCNY team that won both the NCAA and NIT title in the same year.
After the Honor Ring you walk down to the second floor. Here are most of the actual exhibits. First exhibit is on Dr. Naismith and the history of the early game. They even have the original printed copy of the 13 rules of basketball.
Fun Naismith fact- After inventing the game of Basketball in 1891 he went to become the first basketball coach at Kansas in 1898 and in 1936 had the honor of throwing the opening tip off at the First Basketball Game of the Olympics (between France and Estonia). The early basketball section has a ton of jerseys, shoes, trophies, etc all from the early game. It’s amazing how fast the game spread and how quickly it become a national and especially with WWI an international phenomenon. It’s also amazing how well documented the spread of the game was with flyers on display announcing the Original Celtics, Harlem Globetrotters, etc in town to take on the local competition.
Fun Women’s Bball Fact-Only two years after bball was invented by an instructor at Smith College befriended Dr.N. Senda Berenson Abbott organized the first women's game, held at Smith College on March 22, 1893 (no male spectators were allowed) .
The players section of the hall of fame has random jerseys of Hall of Famers. No real organization of the jerseys but I did manage to see many Celtics greats. The only current player represented here is none other than Paul Pierce who for some reason has his locker in the Hall of Fame. There are some cool interactive exhibits where you can test your vertical leap (Jer got a 24 and my beer belly got a whopping 9 inches), measure your wingspan (my wingspan of 70 inches was dwarfed by Mchale’s 94, one more reason of why I’m not in the NBA), and even ‘play’ on a blue screen in a NBA Jam type game. There was also a thing to test your reaction time and a rebounding activity that was broken. The interactive stuff was great, I only wish there more of it. Interactive displays scored a B minus, would have been a B if the rebounding machine was working.
Paul’s Locker
My favorite part of the HOF was the media section mostly because of the Johnny Most “Havilcek Stole the Ball” exhibit. Here you get to watch Johnny’s classic call and then record your own version. I had Jeremy in stitches screeching my horrible Johnny Most impression. A must do activity for any and all Celtics fans. They also had a booth with clips of the greatest games of all time- Jer and I spent at least 30 minutes watching clips of the 72 Olympic Game, the real life Hoosier Final Game of Milan vs. Muncie Central), the triple OT Celtic-Suns game in 76 and many more. There was also a station where you could read off a teleprompter and then watch tape of yourself. The media section was well put together and scores an A minus mostly thanks to the Johnny Most section.
On the second floor there was also a team and a coaches section. At the Celtics area they had several neat artifacts from the Red Auerbach era with my favorite being the necktie he wore at his last game.
At this point Jer and I were pretty exhausted but we trooped on to the ground floor and …. CENTER COURT!!! Center Court was a full sized court with a several different hoops from different stages of the game’s evolution from peach basket to glass backboard. Jer and I warmed up on the peach basket ...
before moving on to Gerald Green type above the rim-tronics.
There was a large sign at Center Court saying it would close at 3:30. When I asked one of the employees why Center Court was closing early he replied it was being rented out for a bar mitzah. Apparently for a cool 3 to 7 Gs the Hall of Fame can be yours for any type of occasion. Lets just say I know now where all future Dancin Joe's kids bnai mitzah will be .
In review I liked the history of the game presented in Springfield, loved the interactive activities but would have appreciated more stories of the game presented in more interesting ways than hey look another old jersey. Exhibits on different eras of the game would have been great. Total grade of the Bball Hof= B. This has been Dancin Joe leaving you with a moment of Zen.
Of all things originating in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts- Dunkin Donuts, the American Revolution, birth control, etc - none is so universally accepted and loved as the game of basketball. So when my roommate Jeremy suggested we go to the Basketball Hall of Fame I agreed faster than you could say peach basket peach basket. Springfield is about a 2-hour drive from Boston including a breakfast stop at McD’s on the mass pike. Say what you want about the Golden Arches, they still have the best fast food breakfast hands down. I had been to the Hall of Fame as a kid but not since it was redone in 2002. What follows are some highlights and lowlights from a Perkolators perspective (keep in mind I have work experience at the Boston Children Museum, Old North Church, Davis Farmland and Megamaze, and the National Yiddish Book Center so I have a bit of a clue in terms of tourism/visitor service).
Here’s Jeremy outside the Hall of Fame. He’s a little punchy after being in the car for 2 hours (that explains why he parked on the sidewalk).
The Basketball Hall of Fame is conveniently located in Springfield off of I-91 about 10 minutes from the Mass Pike. From the street the Hall of Fame is an impressive structure that looks like a cross between Space Mountain, Epcot center, and a Basketball. Once inside the Hall of Fame has a central axis of a basketball court appropriately called Center Court. You take an elevator up to the Honors ring (3rd floor) then work your way down to the ground floor. On the Honors ring they have a picture and a blurb of every single inductee into the Hall of Fame. It’s pretty impressive. All inductees in the honor ring get the same amount of blurbage and some players have artifacts displayed (jerseys, shoes, etc.) After spending 30 minutes or so walking around the Honor ring it becomes quickly apparent there are a crapload of inductees you’ve never heard of. Fun Fact- There are 4 teams inducted to the HOF. They are the Buffalo Germans, the New York Rens, the Harlem Globetrotters and of course the original Celtics.
Here is a picture of the original Celtics. They have two players inducted into the Hall of Fame, Joe Laphick and Nat Holman. Holman was later the coach of the 1950 CCNY team that won both the NCAA and NIT title in the same year.
After the Honor Ring you walk down to the second floor. Here are most of the actual exhibits. First exhibit is on Dr. Naismith and the history of the early game. They even have the original printed copy of the 13 rules of basketball.
Fun Naismith fact- After inventing the game of Basketball in 1891 he went to become the first basketball coach at Kansas in 1898 and in 1936 had the honor of throwing the opening tip off at the First Basketball Game of the Olympics (between France and Estonia). The early basketball section has a ton of jerseys, shoes, trophies, etc all from the early game. It’s amazing how fast the game spread and how quickly it become a national and especially with WWI an international phenomenon. It’s also amazing how well documented the spread of the game was with flyers on display announcing the Original Celtics, Harlem Globetrotters, etc in town to take on the local competition.
Fun Women’s Bball Fact-Only two years after bball was invented by an instructor at Smith College befriended Dr.N. Senda Berenson Abbott organized the first women's game, held at Smith College on March 22, 1893 (no male spectators were allowed) .
The players section of the hall of fame has random jerseys of Hall of Famers. No real organization of the jerseys but I did manage to see many Celtics greats. The only current player represented here is none other than Paul Pierce who for some reason has his locker in the Hall of Fame. There are some cool interactive exhibits where you can test your vertical leap (Jer got a 24 and my beer belly got a whopping 9 inches), measure your wingspan (my wingspan of 70 inches was dwarfed by Mchale’s 94, one more reason of why I’m not in the NBA), and even ‘play’ on a blue screen in a NBA Jam type game. There was also a thing to test your reaction time and a rebounding activity that was broken. The interactive stuff was great, I only wish there more of it. Interactive displays scored a B minus, would have been a B if the rebounding machine was working.
Paul’s Locker
My favorite part of the HOF was the media section mostly because of the Johnny Most “Havilcek Stole the Ball” exhibit. Here you get to watch Johnny’s classic call and then record your own version. I had Jeremy in stitches screeching my horrible Johnny Most impression. A must do activity for any and all Celtics fans. They also had a booth with clips of the greatest games of all time- Jer and I spent at least 30 minutes watching clips of the 72 Olympic Game, the real life Hoosier Final Game of Milan vs. Muncie Central), the triple OT Celtic-Suns game in 76 and many more. There was also a station where you could read off a teleprompter and then watch tape of yourself. The media section was well put together and scores an A minus mostly thanks to the Johnny Most section.
On the second floor there was also a team and a coaches section. At the Celtics area they had several neat artifacts from the Red Auerbach era with my favorite being the necktie he wore at his last game.
At this point Jer and I were pretty exhausted but we trooped on to the ground floor and …. CENTER COURT!!! Center Court was a full sized court with a several different hoops from different stages of the game’s evolution from peach basket to glass backboard. Jer and I warmed up on the peach basket ...
before moving on to Gerald Green type above the rim-tronics.
There was a large sign at Center Court saying it would close at 3:30. When I asked one of the employees why Center Court was closing early he replied it was being rented out for a bar mitzah. Apparently for a cool 3 to 7 Gs the Hall of Fame can be yours for any type of occasion. Lets just say I know now where all future Dancin Joe's kids bnai mitzah will be .
In review I liked the history of the game presented in Springfield, loved the interactive activities but would have appreciated more stories of the game presented in more interesting ways than hey look another old jersey. Exhibits on different eras of the game would have been great. Total grade of the Bball Hof= B. This has been Dancin Joe leaving you with a moment of Zen.