Cougars' tradition receives validation

SOUTH BEND, IND. — It was only a flare pass away from the mural of Joe Montana, Knute Rockne, Paul Hornung and Woody Hayes: a picture of LaVell Edwards. You couldn't miss it.

One thing you can say for the College Football Hall of Fame: it knows its audience. With BYU in town for today's game against Notre Dame, why not please the tourists? So it put BYU up there, front and center, Friday. Next to the ticket counter was a video screen, showing highlights of Hall of Famers Gifford Nielsen, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Marc Wilson and, naturally, Edwards.

There was also a sign that read, "Welcome Cougars and BYU fans."

The display was as bodacious as Moses Elewonibi himself — the massive BYU lineman who won the Outland Trophy. Also on display were jerseys of Jason Buck — another Outland winner — as well as Doak Walker Award winner Luke Staley and Heisman winner Ty Detmer.

If your kids don't really believe it when you say the Cougars were once a force to be reckoned with, all you have to do is tell them to head east and don't stop until they hit the Golden Dome. It's all the validation they'll need.

The BYU glory years really were glorious.

The CFHF is everything a self-respecting museum should be. It's a wealth of information, some of it downright obscure. For instance, did you know comedian Bob Hope and author Archibald MacLeash are both in the Hall of Honor for their longtime support of college football? You probably didn't know New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is there, too. He's a longtime National Football Foundation board member who played football at Culver Military Academy and Williams College. He was also briefly an assistant coach at Northwestern and Purdue.

Rumor has it even back then, if his team didn't go to the Rose Bowl he wanted the head coach fired.

The hall includes a spiral ramp that stretches downward for exactly 100 yards. Nice. A hundred yards downfield to pay dirt. Must be exactly how Barry Sanders felt.

There's also the predictable amount of ancient historical data. For instance, in 1049 A.D., the English played a game they called "Kick the Dane's Head." The ball was the skull of some long-departed enemy.

As you might imagine, it was more popular in England than Denmark.

In the Middle Ages, the English played something similar to football by kicking an object made of cow bladder. Cows just can't seem to win. First people want the bladder, now it's the hide.