Establishing a High School Hall of Fame to Connect with Community

Creating and maintaining a high school athletic hall fame can be a great mechanism to honor outstanding athletes and teams, and to also create a connection and interest in your program by the community. On the surface, what could be so difficult? You come up with a list of worthy candidates and you include the selected individuals to be added to a hall, walk, room or highlighted area.

There are, however, a number of questions and aspects that you should and need to answer and consider as you go about creating your initiative to recognize deserving individuals and teams. The following should help with this process as you think through the necessary steps.

• What are criteria that you will use to select and honor a former athlete? Often, these individuals would have to have been an all-state performer, all-time leading scorer, or attained other similar status or won comparable accolades. In addition, is there a timeframe after graduation in which someone can be considered, perhaps five years? All of this has to be decided upon and clearly made available to anyone wanting to nominate an individual.

• Are there also qualifications in your selection criteria to ensure that the athlete not only achieved significant athletic accomplishments, but also was a good upstanding citizen as a student and worthy of being a role model? Any athletic program with the education-based concept as its foundation should feature and require this expectation.

• Who develops the criteria and the procedures to nominate former athletes? Typically, a committee would do this, and it might be comprised of one or more coaches, a booster club member, an alumnus, an administrator, and headed up by the athletic director.

• Will entire teams be eligible for inclusion into your hall of fame? You could honor a championship team or one that was notable for some other outstanding accomplishment. If this is desired, this provision would have to be included in the list of criteria.

• What are the procedures to nominate a former athlete or team, and who can actually take this step? Where will alumni and community members find the form or information of how to submit a nomination? In this day and age, the school’s athletic website would be a good place to include this information, as well as mentioning it at preseason parent and alumni association meetings, and including the details in various school publications.

• Who makes the final selections for induction? Just as with the creation of the criteria, there would usually be a committee that is charged with this responsibility. Often, each member would rate each candidate using a standard ballot after reading and discussing the merits for each individual who is nominated.

• Do you limit the number of honorees that you will add each year? And if you do, how many? During the first few years, you should have a lot of possibilities. But you also want to determine how many you can realistically add, and also consider the available space you have to display your plaques or form of recognition that you use.

• Do you maintain a pool of nominees if they are not selected for induction in a given year? Some schools may retain nominations for a period of five years, for example, and then there may also be a provision that there could be a special selection for athletes from previous eras such as ‘Old-timers,” “Veterans” or similar designations.

• How are you going to honor the athletes and teams? Commonly, plaques are hung in a lobby area. But there can be other formats, locations and methods that can be employed. A walkway with inscribed bricks, a special room or wall within the school are possibilities that can be employed, and you probably would also want to create a special page on your website to feature the inductees each year who are enshrined. But you also want to consider what you are going to do when this space or location is filled, and how long will this take until you reach capacity?

• Will you have a ceremony in which the inductees are introduced? This might take place during the homecoming activities in the fall, or at a designated home basketball game during the winter season. Will there also be a brief reception for the inductees prior to or after their induction, and where and how will you host this event?

• How are you going to pay for the plaques, displays, bricks or other forms of recognition connected to the inductees? In addition to the permanent method of honoring the individual or a team in the school, it is also a common practice to give the inductee a similar or replica of the plaque. Quite often, booster clubs underwrite the cost of these items and also the expense of the reception, invitations, programs and other items associated with the event. But you do have to establish a funding source.

• How often will you induct a new group of candidates? Some schools do this annually or every other year. Others may only add athletes or teams if and when they are nominated, and there could be a few gaps between inductions.

• Will your hall of fame have a provision that an individual can be removed if he or she is legally convicted or involved in an immoral or unethical situation? If your inductees are intended to serve as a positive role model for current and future students, this a reasonable and logical aspect to consider.

To successfully create and maintain an athletic hall of fame takes time, serious planning, effort and some financial resources. When done properly, this initiative will not only benefit and be appreciated by the inductees, it can also be an immense and great source of pride for the school community.