College Football Hall of Fame Preparing for August Opening in Atlanta
Monday, April 28th, 2014
As he strolls through a room of archives at the Georgia World Congress Center, John Stephenson pauses to crack open a musical instrument case.
Inside is one of his favorite pieces, a trombone. It’s not just any trombone, though, it’s the one carried famously by Stanford band member Gary Tyrrell on Nov. 20, 1982, when California football player Kevin Moen trucked Tyrrell in the culmination of one of the most memorable game-endings in college football history. It capped a lateral-filled kickoff return that finished with Moen weaving through the prematurely celebrating Stanford band, a sequence of events known from there on as “The Play.”
The trombone is just one item on shelves filled with helmets new and ancient, gaudy trophies, game programs and other memorabilia. Hidden for now, the items will be in full public view in the near future when the highly anticipated College Football Hall of Fame opens its doors.
The eye-catching, $66.5 million hall of fame building lines Marietta Street, adjacent to the World Congress Center on what was formerly the Green Lot. It has been in the works since the 2009 decision to move the permanent display from South Bend, Ind., to the South. Stephenson, the president and chief executive officer of Atlanta Hall Management, has watched the process with the prideful eye of an Atlanta native.
