Sports Museum review

The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame was not what I expected, but in a good way.

I expected a lot smaller museum. I guess I didn’t realize there would be history about high schools and I didn’t realize Kansas had such a rich history in sports.

The really cool thing to me was to see the Sports Illustrated covers that featured Kansas athletes. I wish there had been more artifacts — seeing the old Converse “basketball” shoes and antique footballs is more what I enjoy.

The photographs were vivid, as sports photography is, but I do think the museum could benefit from some interactive exhibits.

The most interactive part of the exhibit that I noticed was a high school pole-vaulting record, which was mesmerizing. I think it would be interesting to have cardboard cutouts of some of the larger athletes so you could compare your height and weight to them.

I thought it was odd that Kansas State had such a large area in the museum, while KU and WSU were much smaller exhibits. I imagine that part of their exhibits are based on people donating items from their estates, and hopefully people continue to donate to the museum so it can continue to grow. It’s going to have to if it will fill out the large area at the Boathouse.

I also noticed that some of the newer towns’ high schools did not have exhibits. Hopefully they will continue to create new areas as the museum grows and newer cities (Goddard and Derby, for example) begin to make history.

I expected a much larger exhibit featuring WSU’s plane crash. They could get more archive photos from the WSU library, and I hope they expand it with a documentary and photos. It is really an interesting story.