Doak Walker’s helmet and All-American sweater, a completeensemble worn by Payne Stewart and other SMU athletic memorabiliaare on display at Heritage Hall in the Paul B. Loyd All-SportsCenter.
These items are part of a much larger collection that has notbeen showcased in full due to lack of funding, said Gerry York, SMUalum and co-chair of the Heritage Hall committee.
When the hall opened in September 2000 with the Loyd Center andGerald J. Ford Stadium, the athletic department gave $25,000. Thiswas enough for the hall’s first two exhibits —photographs of SMU athletics by Jim Laughead and sports cartoons byBill McClanahan.
However, additional funding for the hall was unavailable, andthese displays remained the sole exhibits for three years. Becausethe athletic department had other financial needs, the HeritageHall committee could not fundraise on its own for “fear ofconflict,” York said.
He said the committee has recently received permission to startfundraising, and the design team and architect are completing theworking drawings. Plans include audio/visual capabilities to showfilm of classic SMU games and banners commemorating the sixnational championship-winning football teams from SMU that willhang nearly three floors in the Loyd Center atrium.
York estimated the committee would need $100,000 for the atriumand $1.5 million for the hall.
“There’s not going to be another college sportsmuseum like it,” said York.
He cited the popularity of the sports museums at University ofTexas, University of Arkansas and University of Oklahoma,especially on game days.
“It’s going to be a big draw to the campus,”York said, commenting also on the hall’s prime location nearthe Meadows Museum.
York said the effort will be a slow process, and while thefundraising effort is just now starting, the drive for it is notnew.
“We’ve been ready to do this for four years,”he said.
The Dallas Museum of Art donated the display cases that make thecurrent memorabilia exhibits possible. Other items currently ondisplay include the Doak Walker Award and PricewaterhouseCoopersDoak Walker Legends Award trophies and tributes to SMU Olympicmedal winners, Hall of Fame athletes, national championship winnersand record holders and noteworthy athletes such as Luchi Gonzalez,Steve Lundquist, Martina Moravcova, Richey Reneberg, Florence Ezeh,Hank Kuehne, Scott Donie and Cheril Santini.
