Keeping it Sacred in Canton
Going on vacation, huh?” asked a coworker. “Where to?”
“Cleveland,” I replied, getting a quizzical look in return.
“Got family there?” he probed, looking for some plausible reason why I might be forgoing the mountains or the ocean.
“Nope,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the final destination of our summer sojourn was not Cleveland, a scrubbed-up and sophisticated city with great restaurants, a state-of-the-art ballpark, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No, the siren that beckoned me, my brother Ray, and my teenaged sons Jake and Roman resided 50 miles due south on Interstate 77: Canton, Ohio, an unspectacular old American mill town of 200,000 where politeness is still in vogue, barbecued ribs are sweet and plentiful, and football is king. We were going there to revel in all things gridiron, but specifically to pay homage to the savior of our beloved New York Football Giants, Lawrence Taylor (no crack jokes, please), on the occasion of his enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And while all the vacationers streaming past us on their way to the beach were probably dismayed at the rain that fell on the hills of Western New York, we sat back contented in Ray’s big black Chevy Su! burban (an LT edition, no less) and let a Jimi Hendrix cassette call the tune:
Rainy day, rain all day
Let the sun take a holiday
No doubt many of you reading this are thinking that this old columnist has gone south, all right, and more than just 50 miles. Believe me, our wives and daughters were incredulous at the reverence with which we planned and executed all the details of our ultimate boys trip, like a Bill Walsh game plan on Super Sunday. My sister-in-law howled in disbelief when we told her we spent six hours inspecting the bronze busts of our football demigods in the Hall. But we made the trip with their blessings. They saw the fire in our eyes and understood they were dealing with some force beyond their ken or their influence.
That’s what you buy into when you run a national sweeps sending 200 people to the Super Bowl, or sponsor a Rolling Stones tour, or paint your logo on Jeff Gordon’s race car. It’s like when you were in high school and you’d hang out in the halls with your friend Mr. Popular, hoping his charismatic glow would illuminate you long enough to be noticed by the girl you had the hots for. Acceptability by association – that’s what you pay the big sponsorship bucks for. A consultant friend of mine, Barry Feig, calls it attaining “share of heart.” Sometimes you can buy it, sometimes you can’t. In Canton, during Hall of Fame week, you can’t.
“We don’t want it to be a marketplace of sponsors,” says Hall of Fame communications director Joe Horrigan. “We want to keep Hall of Fame Week special for the enshrinees and their families.”
The Hall does have a long-running deal with Visa as its official credit card, and Visa did run a promotion in which rooters in each NFL town voted to select “ultimate fans” who won trips to the enshrinement. Topps had the parking lot souvenir concession, but outside of an understated logo on its tent and an ad in the official program, it made no other noise.
Huge murals of the enshrinees that hang on Fawcett Stadium adjacent to the Hall are provided by Cicchini Corp., a local McDonald’s franchisee, but there are no golden arches and no mention of Cicchini. The next most visible deal is with the Canton Repository, which is allowed to distribute newspapers on the grounds.
And yet the opportunities for promotion are rife. Some 600,000 football fans glom onto Canton during its big week in August, attending street fairs, gala receptions, and the enshrinee parade. For one whole week, the football world is centered in this little city in the bowels of Ohio, and mingling with its citizens is a host of football legends past, old enshrinees who are invited to take part in the festivities.
The enshrinement ceremony itself is . . . well, only football fanatics will get this . . . a near-religious experience. Right there on the stage in front of you are Hall of Fame busts come to life: Otto Graham, the protege of Browns coach Paul Brown who is the Lindbergh of the modern passing offense; Ernie Stautner, granddad of all those great Steelers defenses; Lou Groza, who played 20 years for the Browns, blocking and then kicking; Bob St. Clair, San Francisco’s giant of a defensive tackle in the ’50s, a guy who was wont to eat raw liver at the training table to get a rise out of a rookie.
The four of us sat rapt and speechless for three hours during this glorious spectacle on a gorgeous summer day. Laugh if you must – understand if you are a marketer – but it was a sacred occasion. And we mortal football nuts are not the only ones, it seems, who accord the event divine status. “This was enshrinement number 37,” says Horrigan, “and it hasn’t rained yet.”
It hasn’t been sold yet, either, and may it never be.
And, oh yeah, congratulations L.T. No matter what anybody says about you, we love you.
