News surfaced Wednesday night that the National Soccer Hall of Fame would cease operations, quietly presenting the worst possible news for celebrating the history of soccer in the United States.
Permanent displays from the Hall will be distributed to locations around the country, while the rest will be displayed in storage facilities provided by Eurosport. To think that the history of the game in this country could come to the point of being put away in some storage facility makes me cringe.
There is so much history that goes well beyond Major League Soccer’s inaugural season in 1996 or the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. Admittedly, I too am not as up to date as I should be on this history. Listening to Walt Bahr accept the the Walt Chyzowych Lifetime Achievement Award at the NSCAA Convention in January was a history lesson in itself for me.
But that is exactly the point. How many fans in this country truly know about the history of soccer in the United States? Very few. And where is the one place that they can go to for a comprehensive lesson to learn about how decades of development led to the current state of the game? Oneonta, N.Y.
Maybe the Internet could provide a nice time line, but the Web cannot provide an interactive, personal, hands-on experience. The National Soccer Hall of Fame is an absolute necessity to the game in this country. Major League Soccer, U.S. Soccer and just about every other team and league within these boarders wants to establish a long-standing tradition and legacy in the future. How do any of them expect to do so if the history of the game cannot be preserved?
Sure, the location is not the greatest. Oneonta is in the middle of nowhere, and there are no surrounding attractions to draw tourists to the area outside of the Baseball Hall of Fame down the road in Cooperstown, N.Y., meaning that plenty of fans never even made it to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
However, the Hall is not bound to its current confines. For a while, it seemed that the major question was whether it was financially possible to keep the Hall of Fame in Oneonta or try to relocate. Either way, President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Ullman assured the public in August that the Hall would be somewhere.
“There will always be a Hall of Fame,” he told Oneonta’s Daily Star.
Apparently, things changed. Maybe the writing was on the wall. As a ‘local’ (within two hours), there were points of concern throughout the fall. The reduction of staff members is another mark on the time line, and perhaps the news from my local daily, The Times Herald-Record, should have been seen as a red flag. In late January, it was made official that the New York State boys’ soccer state championships in 2010 and 2011 would be held at Middletown High School – an incredible facility (though it is an American football field), but nothing compared to the charm of Oneonta.
Who is to blame is a concerning question, but it takes a backseat to figuring out a solution. The plans for the 2010 induction ceremony are still to be determined. What happens to the induction ceremony now? What happens to the displays, beyond them just being “distributed?”
Most of all, what happens to the history of the game in the United States? Without a legitimate hall of fame, it will slowly disappear through the cracks. As discussed on Friday’s SPA Daily Podcast, a hall of fame represents something of prestige and legitimacy for a sport. This announcement is a strong step in the direction away from both of those.
Recent Comments