It was surprising that the Wichita City Council voted Tuesday to terminate the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame’s lease from its city-owned building. Thirty days’ notice doesn’t give the museum much time to make other plans. Still, there are only so many museums and attractions that the city can help keep afloat, and the museum hasn’t done a good job making the case that the state needs to fund this state agency.
So what might this mean for the museum? Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Ric Anderson recommended that the sports museum fold into the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. “Granted, it wouldn’t get as much space there without some major renovation or reorganization,” he wrote. “But at a time when the state is cutting spending to deal with a lousy economy and dwindling tax revenue, can we afford to keep propping up a free-standing sports hall that hasn’t shown much potential for drawing enough visitors to pay for itself?”
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The Kansas Museum of History in west Topeka is DEFINITELY NOT the appropriate location for the “Kansas sports hall of fame.” The Kansas History Museum is about real Kansas history and, as I recall from my last visit, is chock full of Kansas history information for visits by students and Kansas history buffs.
The Kansas Sports Hall needs to find a suburban town of Wichita or Johnson County that wants to support the sports museum by providing a building. Salaries should be left up to donations to give incentive to managers to draw in visitors.
Kansas has a lot of unheralded subjects that need a museum … perhaps a “ball of twine museum,” a “snapping alligator turtle” museum, (the giant snapping alligators are native to the Arkansas River), complete the Air Museum to make it world class, etc.
Although I know a few of the featured persons in the Sports Museum, it doesn’t rise to the level to draw people in, in any large numbers.
I’ve never been to this museum so sure aren’t qualified to have an opinion of its interest. But if it didn’t “make it,” I’m sure glad our elected officials saw that and decided not to spend our money to keep it afloat.
A radio news story just mentioned that local Wichita sports afficionodo, Bob Hanson, is involved with the Kansas Sports Museum. So there you go, perhaps Bob can personally fund the rent for another year.
Just kidding Bob.
Another thought for a location might be the Hutchinson State Fair grounds. This would bring in crowds during fair season. Also move up to Topeka for their State Fair also.
What do you think?
Is there enough “stuff,” and a large enough number of Kansas athletes to merit a free-standing museum? I go to basketball games at KU as often as possible and find the displays there of Kansas players interesting, but few are “Kansans.” Of course Barry Sanders and Lynette Woodard come immediately to mind, but how many are there? I’m asking an honest question ’cause I don’t know, don’t mean to sound condescending in any way (just ill informed!).
“JWink” –
I wrote on the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame yesterday.
I can never think it can ever become a destination. Although Kansas most certainly has its share of gifted and notable athletes, no Kansas hall will become a brick-and-mortar destination for public education and tourism.
So what if someone thought outside the box and divided the memorabilia in a series of kiosk displays throughout the state? The rest stops on the turnpike, at various watering holes along I-70.
Displays could be rotated from time to time: maybe Lynnette Woodard’s stuff could be near Wichita (alongside Barry Sanders’ display) for a while and her other stuff rotated to Lawrence for a KU basketball legends display.
But… and this is my idea… consider that this is a video-on-demand society. For a quarter or a buck, you could click on a video of, say, Tom Watson’s career. Eventually, you could build a library of videos about Bill Synder’s K-State era, Glen Cunningham, Jim (gag) Ryun, Billy Mills, and other track stars. And on and on…
But, for a quarter or a dollar, the machine could download to iPods, etc., other videos. Or even burn DVDs.
For me, the whole concept of a Hall of Fame is too funereal for my taste. A lot of these people should be remembered and respected for what they achieved. They deserve more than a plaque in an out-of-the-way location.
“lindainks55″ asks –
“Is there enough “stuff,” and a large enough number of Kansas athletes to merit a free-standing museum?
As I stated above, in a word, no.
But there are some interesting stories and interesting people who’ve achieved some fair-to-middlin’ things in sports.
For example, a Barry Sanders video with a Kansas Perspective could show some of the old game tapes of his years at Wichita North. It might not be the best quality images but golly, you shoulda seen that kid stop-on-a-dime-and-give-ya-five-cents change against much bigger defenders back when he was 5′6″ and a hundred-and-thirty pounds.
Lynnette has so many wonderful (and dreadful) Harlem Globetrotters stories. And she’s such a warm and wonderful and open human being. A lot of people know or remember Woodard, but it is to our honor she’s a fellow Kansan.
As for “who is a ‘Kansan’” I would posit that we ought to bestow at least Honorary Kansan status for anyone who’s put up with the rest of us. We’re a skeptical breed, we Kansans. Missourians say “Show me.” Kansans say “Impress me.”
No, Jack Hartman wasn’t a “Kansan,” but he embodies the Golden Age of K-State basketball. Is Danny Manning a “Kansan?” By now he is.
George Brett plied his trade in Missouri, but he lives in Mission Hills, Kansas.
If there were a Clint Bowyer display & video available at the Emporia rest stop on the ‘Pike, a lot more people would stop, get a burger or a coke, and check it out.
The Wilt Chamberlain at KU story has a lot of angles that tell us volumes about the times and the place. Chamberlain was subjected to a lot of typical 1950s CONservative Kansas racism when he came to KU; and he got a new 1957 Oldsmobile convertible to cruise Mass. during his Freshman year when he was ineligible (as an underclassman) to play for the varsity.
Oh,`yeah, “lindainks55,” there is stuff, but not for a destination venue. Sometime you have to sneak up on people.
Apparently there is also a Wichita Sports Hall of fame that has now offered housing for the KS SHOF. Wouldn’t a merger there make sense?
As for funding I secone JWink – “perhaps Bob (Hanson) can personally fund the rent for another year” except I’m NOT kidding. If Hanson thinks this thing is so important then he and his buddies can support it.
Perhaps they could sell memberships like the Zoo does. That could generate some revenues for them.
Its my uderstanding the the KSHOF is bascially a sports bar without the Booze, Tvs and fried foods
The turnpike rest stop at matfield green has a Knute Rockne notre dame display
“TomPaine” notes –
“The turnpike rest stop at matfield green has a Knute Rockne notre dame display”
Of course, The Rock didn’t actually “live” in Kansas. But in the end, he was one with the land.
It was March 1931, the TWA Fokker Tri-Motor airplane sputtered and crashed into the flint hills of Chase County, Kansas. All aboard, eight men including Knute Rockne, were killed instantly making world news at the time.
A young fellow. not yet a teenager as I recall his story, Easter Heathman, lived with his parents less than a mile distant. Today the site is off K-177 highway, some ten miles south of Cottonwood Falls and only a few miles north of the little, almost ghost town of Matfield Green. The town of Matfield Green is probably about three miles as the crow flies northwest of the Kansas turnpike rest area also called Matfield Green.
With his father and brothers, young Easter Heathman rushed to the site, as I recall the story, and found all passengers dead on that windswept knoll amidst the wreckage of that wooden airplane.
In the mid-1990’s, on a quiet Saturday morning, I stopped along K-177 and asked then elderly Mr. Easter Heathman to show me the site which he has protected all these years. It was kind of inspiring to stand there with Mr. Heathman, looking at the quiet site in the beautiful grassy Flint Hills, trying once again to fathom those last moments in 1931 as the big plane cartwheeled to a deadly crash landing.
The site is marked by a granite stone containing the names of those who died there. A corral surrounds to protect it from cattle.
Easter Heathman told me one coincidence about the site. The Fokker Tri-Motor airplane was operated by then fledgling airline, TWA, probably then known as Trans-Continental and Western. The coincidence according to Mr. Heathman, the ranch crash site was owned by the Kansas man who founded TWA only a few years before.
Of course, Mr. Easter Heathman, rancher, has since joined Knute Rockne and his fellow passengers in their final resting place in the sky.
I had a different idea when I started writing about Knute Rockne and Matfield Green area, responding to Tom P. and Monkey H. That is, one of the Kansas turnpike rest areas such as the Matfield Green rest area might be a good place to display Kansas sports memoirabilia. Or the turnpike rest area just east of Lawrence, Kansas.
Of course, perhaps some Kansas town might be searching for a way to attract tourists. Like Greensburg and its “world’s deepest hand dug well” or the Kansas town with the “world’s largest ball of twine.”