Auburn Must Do Better Celebrating Its Past

How can something so easy, be so hard? I'm not talking about implementing the new college football playoff, but rather an Auburn Football Hall of Fame and Museum. Kudos to AubTigerman for putting together those great pieces last week on the new Track'em Tigers Hall of Fame.

Now it's time for Auburn to follow suit.

It's time the school do a better job of celebrating its past.

It's a shame that with all the history surrounding the football program, there's not a true museum for fans to visit. A few years back, Auburn closed the Lovelace Museum located in the athletic complex and moved a small part of it to the new Auburn arena.

What may have seemed a good idea at the time, has turned out to be a dud. The original site was not nearly big enough; the pavilion within the basketball arena is plain sad.

Why not use the arena to honor basketball and other non-revenue producing sports and build a state-of-the-art museum dedicated completely to football?

I hate to mention that school to the north, but the Paul Bryant Museum is first class in every way. Whereas Auburn has a wall to celebrate its football history, Alabama devotes an entire building.

Imagine the impact of such an attraction - not only on game days, but also in recruiting. You can't tell me Alabama doesn't march every recruit through that museum on weekends.

In fact, I know they do.

At the same time, why not begin an Auburn Football Hall of Fame? I know they honor athletes around Toomer's Corner with the walk of fame (or whatever it's called), but why not go bigger and honor past stars with recognition in Jordan-Hare Stadium?

Auburn does a great job of honoring its Heisman winners, but there have been so many other great players who get little or no recognition once their playing days end. The school could do something like we've done here at TET and let fans vote on five players each year to be inducted.

How cool would that be?

The Dallas Cowboys famously give a star to its hall of famers and display their names on the stadium, Auburn should do something similar. Tying it in with a state-of-the-art museum would fit perfect.

A few years back when the old museum was still in operation, I was given a behind the scenes tour by the curator at the time. He took me to this huge backroom that had Auburn memorabilia stacked to the ceiling.

There were literally thousands of items. When I asked the curator why those items were not on display, he told me if I could find room on the floor, he'd put them there. Point taken.

Instead of expanding, Auburn closed the Lovelace Museum. During its grand opening, then Auburn Athletic Director David Housel remarked, "The purpose of the Lovelace Museum is to honor the past, define the present and inspire the future,

"If we don't know where we come from, we really don't know who we are. If we don't know who we are, we really don't know where we have a chance to go."

Enough said.