Halls exist for all interests
A four-and-a-half-story high leaping muskie monument is an obvious “hook” in Wisconsin. A 20-foot wax likeness of outstretched Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz marks the swimming spot in Florida. Chess enthusiasts can check out a building with a rook in the Sunshine State.
Sports fans can travel the country and find a hall of fame almost anywhere. Name the sport, and there’s a hall.
The hand-sculpted muskie “Shrine to Anglers” is at the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wis. Spitz is enshrined at the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The World Chess Hall of Fame is down the coast in Miami.
As sports hall attractions go, few can compare to that muskie, inside of which is a museum and an observation platform that can fit 20 in the open fish’s mouth.
“It is truly the largest muskie in the world, but it doesn’t swim,” hall executive director Emmett Brown said of the concrete, steel and Fiberglass structure.
The fishing hall, with 260 enshrined, has North American records for kept as well as catch-and-release fish in about 130 species.
The state of New York is home to many halls, with track and field in the Big Apple, horse racing and speed skating in Saratoga Springs, harness racing in Goshen, boxing in Canastota, distance running in Utica and soccer in Oneonta.
New York City’s only hall is unique in that it’s an Armory venue where track and field’s finest compete on location.
Florida is home to the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, which includes a members’ locker room exhibit as well as elaborate displays honoring Bobby Jones and Arnold Palmer.
Spitz recently was named chairman of the board for the swimming hall, also a showplace for diving, water polo and synchronized swimming. Like New York, there are meets on site to attract guests.
“It’s an interesting show when people walk through, but if we didn’t have the events, it would be a difficult attraction,” president Bruce Wigo said. “Once they walk in, they walk out a lot smarter.”
Wigo enjoys sharing stories about the enshrined swimmers including Spitz and former “Tarzan” Johnny Weissmuller or lesser-known achievers such as Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel and creator of the two-piece bathing suit.
“The ancients thought the three essentials were reading, writing and swimming,” said Wigo, whose hall has more than 100 Olympic medals on display, including several won by Weissmuller, a former chairman.
One of his favorite members is two-time Olympic champion Duke Kahanamoku, a Hawaiian who won medals in 1912 and 1920 but is known more for creating the first surfing championship in California in 1928. The Duke, whom President Kennedy considered a hero, was the first inductee in the Surfing Hall of Fame in Santa Monica, Calif.