UNTIL now the sports hall of fame has remained a peculiarly American institution even when copied abroad. But it will acquire a European accent when the Olympic Museum--'the world's most comprehensive repository of written, graphic and visual information related to the Olympic Games'--opens in Lausanne in Switzerland on June 23rd.
In much the same way as its American precursors, the museum will celebrate the achievements of its sports stars with film shows, interactive videos and blown-up photographs. The victors' vices will be dealt with sotto voce. The museum is no keener to shout about the chemically enhanced performances of past medal winners than the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, is to advertise that some of its inductees, most notably Ilie Nastase, are best remembered for their unsporting behavior.
The Olympic Museum will also follow the lead of American halls of fame in putting on display the sort of memorabilia that excites children of all ages: the postage stamps issued by Haiti in 1940 bearing the effigy of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern games; the shoes Carl Lewis wore when he won the 200 metre gold medal in the summer games in Los Angeles in 1984; the crash helmet that protected Jean-Claude Killy's head in the winter games in Grenoble in 1968; and so on.
There is, however, one big difference between this institution and all-American halls of fame. The Olympic Museum seeks seriously (ie, not in a kitsch way) to celebrate the link between sport and the creative arts--a link which dates back beyond the Ancient Greek sculptures of god-like young athletes throwing the discus, the javelin and themselves into the air. The art in its permanent collection ranges from an Ancient Greek vase (circa 320 BC) and an Etruscan torch (circa 6th century BC) to a 1921 sculpture by Antoine Bourdelle called 'Heracles as Archer', a Faberge trophy presented by Tsar Nicholas II to the winner of the decathlon in Stockholm in 1912, and an untitled 1992 abstract painting by Antoni Tapies of what could be a skier.
The art on display is not confined to sporting subjects. The museum engaged in a subtle form of extortion in inviting the cities which are competing to stage the games in 2000 to 'select their most prized and valuable works of art' to go on display in Lausanne this summer. It was an invitation that none of the six rival cities--Beijing, Berlin, Brasilia, Istanbul, Manchester or Sydney--dared decline. The resulting treasure trove includes paintings by Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, J.M.W. Turner, Francis Bacon, Sidney Nolan and Arthur Streeton.
There is no compelling reason for all-American halls of fame to pay any heed to what the Olympic Museum has done on the arts. They have already found a formula that is so successful that stars in several sports in America see their election to a hall of fame as the ultimate accolade, the pinnacle of a sporting career.
One case in point is the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, with its life-sized, action blow-ups of 'Hall of Famers' in a modern three-storey building. Another is the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where all five members of the class of 1991 were, according to Insider, the in-house journal, 'awed by the tremendous honour--official recognition that they were among the very best their sport had produced--that was being bestowed upon them.' All five spoke about their families but none so sentimentally as Earl Campbell, a football superstar of the 1980s. 'Now my daddy, B.C. Campbell, is up there in heaven telling his buddies what a great son he has,' said Earl.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, is even more famous. It aroused truly national, not merely sporting, controversy when it excluded Pete Rose, the man with more hits than anybody else in history, from the Cooperstown gallery because he bet on the outcome of games when he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
However, much can be learnt from the Olympic Museum by halls of fame which aim to become famous not just in America but worldwide. One such is Newport's International Tennis Hall of Fame. Whatever their nationality, the winners of this year's singles titles at Wimbledon can look forward eventually to becoming 'inductees'. But they will have to be patient. Players are not eligible for 'enshrinement' until they have been out of the rankings (ie, off the men's and women's professional tours) for at least five years. So not until they start losing sets to rabbits are the current crop of champions likely to see their photographs mounted alongside those of Lew Hoad, Evonne Goolagong, Tony Trabert, Helen Wills Moody and other famous has-beens in the Hall of Fame.
'Who cares?' and 'So what?' is the common reaction of foreigners when they are told by their American friends about the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Americans find this couldn't-care-less attitude baffling but if the word international in the institution's title is to mean anything a way will have to be found to overcome the indifference of foreigners.
To become famous outside America, it needs to find a way, as the Olympic Museum has through the arts, to become something more worthy than just a hall of fame. It could, for instance, set up a tennis study centre. Or, better still, it could try to improve the infamously bad manners of tennis players. This would mean persuading tennis professionals to require all new entrants on their circuit first to acquire a certificate on court deportment from the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It sounds fanciful, but a similar requirement for golfers on the American PGA Tour has much improved the manners of young golfers.
