NCAA Hall of Champions makes mascot mania come to life

 Have you ever wondered how your favorite college team came to have its mascot? Do you know how many times a mascot has been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated?

A new exhibit at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis will answer those and many other questions when it pays homage to the collegiate mascot this summer.

The exhibit, called "Mascot Mania: Our Fascination with Collegiate Traditions," runs from June 6 through September 24 and includes photos, trivia, historical information and anecdotes that tell the tale of mascots representing NCAA schools from all divisions and regions across the nation.

The motivation to put the exhibit together came from a September 14, 2004, leftpiece in The NCAA News.

"There had been conversation before about doing a mascot exhibit, but the research provided in the News leftpiece gave us a lot of material we could use to get started," said Kelly Dodds, the Hall's assistant director of special projects.

Exhibit organizers solicited information from about 150 schools. In response, organizers received nearly 300 photos, countless stories and anecdotes, video clips and even 10 costumes to include in the display.

The exhibit also includes a wall featuring the eight Sports Illustrated covers devoted to college mascots, dating back to 1954, when the Yale Bulldog became the first to earn the prominent spot. Visitors also will have a chance to try on the head of a mascot costume, read stories of how several schools chose their mascots and watch video clips of various mascots in action.

"This is pretty unique," Dodds said. "We typically concentrate on sports, but this is more the pageantry and spirit of sports," said Dodds. Dodds also said that the Hall of Champions staff conducted extensive research and found several Web sites dedicated to mascots, but no museum or other exhibits, which indicates that the summer show in Indianapolis may be the first of its kind.

To mark the opening of the exhibit, the Hall will team with Radio Disney and the Indianapolis Zoo for Mascots Live ! Set for June 18, the four-hour interactive event will feature appearances from the Michigan State University, Western Kentucky University, University of Georgia and Butler University mascots. Live animals from the zoo representing some of the most popular school mascots, such as spiders, owls and hawks, also will be on hand.

"We've seen the allegiance that sports fans have to their schools, specifically the athletics programs," said George Smith, managing director of the Hall, "so this is a fitting tribute to the many mascots who help generate much of that excitement."

General admission to the Hall of Champions is $3 for adults and $2 for students. A special admission price of $2 will be in effect during the Mascots Live ! event.

Ephs let disadvantaged run a mile in their shoes

The Williams College men's and women's track and field teams are used to winning. The women's squad recently collected its fifth straight New England Small College Athletic Conference championship, and the men captured their 13th league title in 15 years.

Students at the Rugambwa Secondary School in Bukoga, Tanzania, hope there's a bit of magic left in the Ephs' shoes as the teams have donated more than 300 pairs to the school to help get its running program out of the blocks.

The request for aid came from former Williams track and field student-athlete Janna Rearick, now a biology teacher at Rugambwa who wanted to start a running program there, but only two children had shoes in which to run.

After receiving Rearick's e-mail asking for assistance, Ephs head coach Ralph White encouraged student-athletes to donate any used running or track shoes. Within a couple of days, White, who figured on receiving a couple dozen pair at the most, was overrun, literally, with shoes.

"The next day I had 252 pairs of shoes in my office and I had to move them to the meeting room next door to my office," White said. "We had another 40 the next day and they just kept coming. When we finish packing, I'm guessing we'll have more than 350 pairs. I know Janna and the kids at her school will be excited when these boxes show up."

-- Compiled by Leilana McKindra

Number crunching

Looking back

Here's what was making NCAA news in May 1970:

• The NCAA Council approves a recommendation to limit baseball's regular season to 40 games.
• The NCAA Executive Committee votes to drop trampoline as a National Collegiate championship event. The action follows several years of debates, surveys and votes on the event, which was nearly eliminated after the 1968 season when it was a scoring event in the gymnastics championships. It became its own championship in 1969, but only three teams and 18 competitors participated in the 1970 event.
• Eight student-athletes, one basketball coach and one member of the national office staff are selected to visit American military personnel at outposts in Vietnam and Pacific-area military hospitals. The U.S. Department of Defense accepted the NCAA outreach program proposal in part to use personal contact with student-athletes to give GIs a favorable image of campus life, thus convincing them to use the educational benefits of the GI Bill upon their discharge. Among the athletes selected are Stanford quarterback Jim Plunkett and Missouri receiver Mel Gray. Ohio State basketball coach Fred Taylor and NCAA Assistant Executive Director Chuck Neinas also are chosen.
• Andy Geiger, assistant athletics director at Syracuse, is named commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference.
• Gene Bartow is named head basketball coach at Memphis. Bartow takes over for Hank "Moe" Iba.