"I am sure that no man can derive more pleasure from money or power than I do from seeing a pair of basketball goals in some out-of-way place." – Dr. James Naismith
It's a story of near mythical origins. In 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian phys. ed. instructor at the YMCA School for Training in Springfield, Massachusetts, was assigned the task of creating an indoor game that a restless group of aspiring secretaries could play during the cold winter months. At the time, indoor exercise programs were mostly restricted to the boring routine of drills and calisthenics. Naismith wanted a game that was fun, physically-demanding, emphasized skill over strength, and could be played in a limited space.
Drawing on the concept of "Duck-on-a-Rock," a game Naismith played as a boy in which players lofted rocks in order to knock other rocks off a base stone, Naismith attached two peach baskets to the opposite ends of a gymnasium ten feet above the floor (a measurement which remarkably holds true today), posted thirteen rules (almost all of which are outdated), and brought out a leather soccer ball (the "dribble" had not yet been invented). On December 21, 1891, the first "Basket Ball" game was played, and the sport that would come to capture the imagination of millions was born.
It is here, in the unassuming city of Springfield, in a prominent location off I-91 South, where this story is told.
To accommodate basketball's increasing popularity, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was moved to a new 40,000 sq. ft. building in 2002. One can only forgive the Hall's overambitious, futuristic exterior design, which, however eye-catching, says more theme park than museum. The exterior's crown jewel, a giant silver ball, calls to mind the EPCOT ball at Disney World. Fast food logos adorn the front entrances. The museum itself, on the other hand, is a more satisfying and deferential, yet no less lively, tribute to the game.
View full sizeThe Court of Dreams.
"I'll send you up to see the hall-of-famers first," the elevator attendant says with a grin, as if the game's greats are lined-up waiting to meet you. The "hall-of-famers," a group of 313 players, teams, coaches, and contributors, are immortalized on plaques in a pantheon-style dome called the "Honors Ring." The "Honors Ring" overlooks the "Court of Dreams," an impeccably-waxed, regulation-sized basketball court where visitors can shoot hoops. For all its schmaltzy and shamelessly borrowed language —"Court of Dreams" is an obvious retooling of Field of Dreams — the split-level arrangement still gets its point across: if basketball has a heaven, this is probably what it looks like.
Basketball hoops from different eras hang near the center-court sideline like a monkeys-to-man evolution chart, starting with Naismith's peach basket and ending with the current glass-backboard-and-breakaway-rim version. An arena-style scoreboard that replays game highlights from yesteryear hangs from the ceiling. You might catch a five-year old struggling just to shoot the ball up on the rim, or a teenager trying to dunk even though it's painfully obvious he has a better chance of snapping his spine, or a seasoned basketball vet stroking jumpers with textbook form. It's a scene that is replicated in countless parks and gyms throughout the world.
View full sizeThe Honors Ring.
Standing from quite literally the heights of basketball glory, you are reminded that the struggle of a hall-of-famer — surely one of days, hours, and years spent trying to learn and understand the game, of hard lessons learned both on and off the court — is shared by all lifetime basketball-lovers. In this sense, the Honors Ring spotlights the people who best represent, not own, the game's legacy.
What is initially a sea of lily-white faces comes to include more blacks and finally women. More perimeter players come to join the company of big-men, evidence of an increasing trend towards guard-play. It becomes apparent that basic rules and strategies we take for granted were once met with skepticism. Where would the game be without the likes of Amos Alonzo Stagg, a key promoter of five-on-five basketball (many of the first teams played nine-on-nine or seven-on-seven), or Ward Lambert and Frank Keany, two of the first coaches to advocate a more up-tempo, run-n'-gun style of play and tap into the game's full athletic potential?
The names on the plaques mirror basketball's incremental rise in popularity. They move from modest fame (no high Q scores here) — Naismith, Allen, Mikan, Wooden (as a player), Kurland, Russell (John D.) — to those easily recognized by the casual basketball fan — Auerbach, Cousy, Wooden (as a coach), Russell (Bill), Chamberlain, West, Baylor, Robertson, Reed, Maravich, Erving. The spotlight then shifts to names easily recognized by the casual sports fan — Abdul-Jabbar, Bird, Johnson, Thomas, Barkley, Ewing, Olajuwon, Jackson — and finally rests on one that has managed to transcend basketball and become an institution of popular culture — Jordan. The Honors Ring is markedly incomplete, however. A large swath of white space eagerly awaits another fifty some-odd years of basketball history.
View full sizeThe Basketball Origins exhibit sheds light on the game's early years.
An extensive series of exhibits on the second floor filled with game-worn uniforms and sneakers, milestone balls, championship nets, and other memorabilia rounds out the narrative introduced by the Honors Ring and Court of Dreams. All corners of the basketball spectrum are explored, from high school to college, AAU to professional, at home to overseas, Olympics to Paralympics.
Each exhibit area has a distinctive appeal. The Basketball Origins exhibit is loosely modeled after the stuffy 50 x 30 YMCA gym where the first basketball game was played, with early forms of the basketball hoop hanging from a wood balcony overhead. Artifacts from Naismith's life, the YMCA, and early scholastic, amateur, and pro teams highlight the striking differences between then and now, sometimes to comical effect. A uniform worn by the Original New York Celtics, one of the preeminent barnstorming teams of the 1920s (no relation to the Boston Celtics), and a bulky wool uniform worn by members of the Smith College basketball team, the first women's team, are just two of the many relics that would bemuse a modern observer.
Memorabilia from storied high school and college programs and the premiere NBA franchises is arranged in an artificial locker-room. A panel of "Basketball Strategies" stands in place of a would-be chalkboard (If you really want to make yourself dizzy, try following Tex Winter's "Triangle/Triple-Post Offense.").The central portion of "Committed to the Dream," the temporary USA Basketball exhibit, looks like a glowing super-sized gazebo. A montage of red, white, and blue "00" USA jerseys hangs overhead. Game-worn jerseys hang from the luminous side-panels, including those of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, captains of the impossibly talented and hugely influential '92 Dream Team. A sprawling American flag is plastered on the room's front wall, only the stars and stripes on this flag consist solely — get it — of sneakers.
View full sizeThe early '80s were exciting times for college basketball. Michael Jordan netted a clutch jumper to lift the UNC Tar Heels over the Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown Hoyas in the 1982 National Championship game, marking the first of many times Jordan would deny Ewing a title. NC State won the 1983 National Championship game on a equally thrilling last-second dunk by Lorenzo Charles. The following year, Ewing and the Hoyas ousted Hakeem Olajuwon's University of Houston squad en route to the 1984 championship. Left to right: A championship hat worn by NC State; a jersey worn by Patrick Ewing; a ball commemorating the 1982 national championship game.
The interactive area is a kind of calmer, hoops-themed version of Dave & Buster's. Life-size cutouts of the 5"3 Muggsy Bogues, the shortest to ever play in the NBA, and the late 7"7 Manute Bol, one of the tallest, illustrate the comically stratified history of NBA height. More memorabilia from current stars is showcased, assuring you a fix of Kobe, Dirk, Melo, LeBron, and D. Wade.
You can test your rebounding prowess with a height-adjustable ball-on-a-string or your vertical leap next to a larger-than-life image of former "Air Canada" Vince Carter. You can play arcade-style basketball or sub yourself into a motion-sensored video game. You can even find out if Shaq's size 22 shoe seems as big as advertised or is merely the stuff of exaggerated legend (it isn't).
An announcer's booth sandwiched in between the Honors Ring and Court of Dreams offers commentator karaoke: visitors can view sub-titled footage of an historic game and make their own recordings of the equally historic play call. Most are quickest to re-summon Johnny Most's burst of emotion after John Havelick poked away an inbound pass to secure a Celtics victory in Game 7 of the 1965 Eastern Division Finals: "Havelick stole the ball! It's all over! It's all over!" It's one of those enduring play calls that make special sports moments all the more special. Some imitate Most with a level of enthusiasm that would make you think the game just happened.
View full sizeNJ high school hoops fans are sure to take notice of the St. Anthony's display.
The less-heralded aspects of TV broadcast are examined as well. In the adjoining A/V room, a Lakers-Kings playoff game shown through the perspective of a broadcast director reveals a surprisingly complicated process. The directors, who wear headsets, rally the cameramen, and analyze game action like NFL offensive coordinators, are stationed in front of a dizzying grid of TV's. Each TV draws attention to a different aspect or angle of the game. At a moment's notice, the director must cue a player's reaction to a big play, a coach's objection to a bad call, or a fan's awkward but endearingly spontaneous dance after a scoring-run. The implication is clear: the viewer's presentation of reality is only as good as the director's interpretation of it.
At the entrance to "Become Legendary: The Story of Michael Jordan" (on display until November 2011) is a massive reproduction of the "Nike Wings concept poster," a 1989 Upper Deck promotion. With a solemn stare, outstretched arms, and a basketball in one hand, Jordan has spread his own "wings" as if ready to take flight (the original poster features the William Blake quote "No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings" scribbled under a small Nike logo). It's brilliant. It's poetic. It perfectly encapsulates Jordan's cross-cultural, cross-generational, cross-everything appeal not just as a great basketball player, but as someone who redefines the limits of human potential.
And it's all brought to you by... Nike. In fact, the whole exhibit was, as Richard Sandomir points out in the New York Times, "designed, installed, and paid for by [Jordan Brand] a division of Nike." The "Wings" tribute is accompanied by a note from Jordan Brand congratulating Jordan on his 2009 induction. The Jordan Brand slogan —"Become Legendary"— is woven into the exhibit's title. The full line of Jordan shoes 1-26 — all fresh-out-the-box — is a feature display. The career timeline makes little mention of outside marketing ventures. Many of the exhibit items, Sandomir reports, come from a Nike stockpile, not from Jordan himself.
View full sizeA hulking image of Jordan cites his unrivaled catalog of awards and honors by year.
Yet the MJ exhibit is neither exclusively a corporate campaign nor a riveting, comprehensive analysis of the game's greatest player. Instead, it strikes middle-ground, presenting a limited, sometimes enlightening, sometimes skewed history as told by Jordan's foremost sponsor. Disappointing? Yes. Disastrous? No. It may consistently lack the magic Jordan created throughout his career, but, as evidenced by "Wings," it can still offer a glimpse.
Jordan's legacy is often viewed as an exciting theatrical production replete with gravity-defying dunks, fade-away jumpers, clutch playoff performances, and all the earthly basketball accolades one could amass. That familiar, romanticized view — much of which Jordan can't help but bring upon himself — is reinforced by "What is Love?," a five-minute Jordan Brand commercial shown in a seat-less mini-theater. The commercial chronicles his rookie days with the Chicago Bulls to his second comeback with the Washington Wizards, all while he discusses his love for basketball over tension-building music and a highlight reel of some his greatest moments. A hulking image of Jordan — back to the camera, classic hands-on-hips-pose — again reinforces this view, citing his unrivaled catalog of awards and honors by year.
To the side of that scrolling declaration of dominance is a quote from a '97 Nike spot that depicts MJ in a less-glamorous, more vulnerable light: "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Such steely focus on the process of overcoming failure and coping with self-doubt suggests an incredible self-awareness and mental toughness.
Despite all the public adulation, there's still the lingering sense that Jordan never quite felt this aspect of his game was fully understood; that the splendor of his success undersold his blue-collar values. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. writes in the New Yorker, the ad agency initially planned on hiring Oliver Stone to shoot the '97 commercial, but Jordan was unconvinced. "Oliver Stone don't know s*** about basketball," he said. "Let the people see exactly what happened over the twelve years of my career... Let them know it isn't always good for the people up top." Similar frustration boils over in a chilling 2008 commercial in which Jordan considers the unfortunate consequences of his glamorized legend. "Maybe I destroyed the game...or maybe you're just making excuses," he finally relents to a group of young players.
Once Jordan's struggles are weighed equally with his triumphs, a clearer, more human portrait comes into focus. The framed jerseys that hang from the ceiling, from Laney High to the Washington Wizards, were earned, not given. The six championship rings encased in plexi-glass — frequently cited as plain evidence of Jordan's status as the greatest of all time — were won with heart, not with a calculator. The indelible image of Jordan clutching his first Larry O'Brien trophy like a Newborn baby, displayed above his first ring, suggests an outpouring of tear-infused joy that could only be brought upon by a tortuous pain. If anything is to be taken away from the soon-to-be-disbanded exhibit, it is that being "like Mike" means accepting and confronting the reality of human frailty.
View full sizeAfter being knocked out of the playoffs by the Pistons three years in a row, the Bulls defeated their arch-rivals in the '91 Eastern Conference Finals and went on to beat the Lakers in five games. Jordan's chase for his elusive first ring was finally over.
The Japanese poet Matsuo Basho once said "Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home." For anyone who has ever been touched by the game, the Basketball Hall of Fame is home. The airy central shrine, interactive exhibits, and wealth of artifacts vividly capture the subtleties and nuances of basketball's 120-year history.
In August, rebound king Dennis Rodman took his place in this history. The man just as famous for his clownish appearance, erratic behavior, and run-ins with the law, was reduced to tears trying to make his induction speech. "This game's been very good to me," he said. "I could've been anywhere in the world — I could've been dead, I could've been a drug dealer, I could've been homeless. I was homeless." He thanked the people who helped him along the way and the NBA community for merely letting him in the building. He expressed his deepest regrets as a father, husband, and person, but vowed to make amends.
So what is basketball? Basketball is love.
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The Basketball Hall of Fame is open 10:00 to 4:00 Sun-Fri, and 10:00 to 5:00 on Saturday. The museum will be closed on Sunday, Oct. 23. Cost of admission is $16.99 for adults, $13.99 for seniors, and $11.99 for kids. Children under four are free. For more information, visit hoophall.com.
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