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WHAT IS IT?The shrine to professional football.
BEAUTY (2/10)
The Pro Football Hall of Fame has neither the charming small town atmosphere of Baseball’s Cooperstown, N.Y. nor the innovative design of Basketball’s Hall in Springfield, Mass. The Football HOF’s entranceway looks like a bundt cake topped with a wedged orange. In fact, it’s a football protruding from a round platform. Not much better. The football’s interior creates rotunda bespeckled with colorful crystals reminiscent of a maharajah’s headdress. Kitschy but not exactly high art.
As the Hall has grown, it has added non-descript structures to house its growing collection. The curators clearly put a preference on function over form. Most of the Hall’s exhibits seem dated, regardless of their creation date. The sole exception is the enshrinement hall, resplendent with busts of Hall of Fame members and a touch-screen computer console to tell and show visitors whatever they would want to know about the gridiron greats.
HISTORICAL INTEREST (6/10)
Football did not start in Canton, Ohio. Professional football did not start here either. The conference that created the first professional football league took place here. We guess that counts for something. The Canton Bulldogs eleven were also one of the first great pigskin franchises. Jim Thorpe, perhaps America’s greatest athlete, played for Canton. While the town’s football history may be rich, the memorabilia contained in the museum encapsulates the history of American football in the utmost.
CROWDS (4/10)We did not pick the best time to travel to Canton. Early June is the time when football is the furthest from our collective American mind. The NFL Draft has already happened. We have the NBA and NHL playoffs and baseball is just getting into full swing. We won’t be obsessing over football until, well, August. As a result, no one was at the Hall. We did not hear fathers telling their sons stories about their childhood favorites; we did not hear excitement. We did not hear much of anything except canned muzak over the loudspeakers. On the other hand, we were able to see every exhibit without interference or interruption.
EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
The Hall is located at Exit 107A off Interstate 77. The Hall’s large parking lot lies in the wake of the Interstate. However, there is currently construction on I-77 nearby the Hall making traffic a bit tricky.
The Hall of Fame is completely accessible to people using wheelchairs or pushing strollers.
CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
Very few books. Not sure if there actually are any great books based on professional football. We can’t think of any. Please help. As it is, the museum sells mostly autobiographies of Hall of Fame members. The store’s clothing collection is extensive, sorted by professional football team, but still not much better than a local sporting goods store. In their quest to be inclusive to all fans, the Hall has spread themselves a little thin. We did enjoy the bobble head dolls of last years HOF inductees.
COSTS (1/5)
$13 per adult. AAA membership knocks it down to $10. $6 per child. The Hall of Fame offers a $32 flat entrance fee per family, which could be nice if you have a lot of kids.
RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (1/5)
The museum is entirely self-guided. If you don’t know what you are looking at, then you can probably just ask your friend or significant other that you came with. They can most likely answer your question and tell you a good story about the ragged jersey or the scuffed cleat you are looking at.
TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)Except for the enshrinement room, everything seems dated. The historical timeline at the Hall’s entrance on the second floor actually stops in 1992. The museum then segues into the current NFL as if the 1990’s never happened. As a Rams fan, Michael does not exactly mind this kind of historical inaccuracy. He tries to believe those years never happened as well. Tony Banks, Todd Kinchen, Amp Lee be gone.
The NFL Films theater’s seats actually rotate 180 degrees to show the film on two different screens. It’s too bad that in the film, Keyshawn Johnson and Bill Parcells are both still NY Jets and that the aforementioned Amp Lee is still a Ram. Horrible flashbacks, horrible flashbacks. Simple deduction shows that the film’s highlights are from the 1998 season, which is a shame given the consistent brilliance of NFL Films productions. Couldn’t they just change the film?
The score is a 6 here because, while the exhibits are dated, they are still laid out in a concise and helpful manner. Everything you want to see is here. In addition, the enshrinement room’s interactive computer is wonderful. We stood and watched Hall members’ highlights, interviews, and favorite moments for at least an hour. We just wish they would have provided stools.
FUN (7/10)
Yes, the Hall could stand to improve, but we still had a good time. We spent about four hours there.
WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (6/10)
The interactive computers in the enshrinement room and the NFL film in the theatre are entertaining enough to occupy anyone in your party who is less than crazy about football. Football fans will be impressed with the collection of memorabilia. As a bonus, there are audio files connected with many displays which let you hear the players recount a certain play or incident, or listen to a radio broadcast of a historical moment like the longest field goal. The first floor does have an interactive room of sorts which consists of a football throwing cage and a couple of computerized trivia games, including NTN’s QB 1, which we’ve never understood. Still, we like to play.
TOTAL 38/80
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