Featured Exhibit - Game Day USA

The College Football Hall of Fame features their newest exhibit, "Game Day USA," which highlights the game day traditions of colleges and universities across the nation that make college football a spectacle, not just a sport.

The term "Game Day" encompasses much more than simply what takes place on the football field. Representing nearly 50 of the most revered game day traditions in college football, "Game Day USA" goes beyond the gridiron match-up to explore how cheerleaders, mascots, bands, stadiums, rivalries and fan rituals come together to produce the pageantry and ceremony surrounding a college football game.

On display will be rivalry trophies like Minnesota and Wisconsin's Paul Bunyan Ax and Kansas and Missouri's Indian War Drum, and memorabilia from mascots such as Colorado's Ralphie, Navy's Billy the Goat, the Notre Dame Leprechaun, and West Virginia Mountaineer. Also featured are famed bands such as the classic Script Ohio performing Ohio State and the non-traditional Stanford band, as well as other halftime customs like the USC Song Girls and the Purdue Golden Girl. Fans have their own rituals, many involving items like the cowbells at Mississippi State, hog hats at Arkansas, or the Tide Boxes at Alabama; others are without props, as fans greet one another with school specific hand signals such as the Hook 'Em Horn at Texas. Guests visiting the exhibit will also watch a video presentation while seated in a recreation of the Harvard Stadium colonnade, and gaze upon a section of Boise State's "Smurf Turf". All this and much more is integrated in the "Game Day USA" exhibit as it spotlights every facet of the game day experience to provide the visitor with a unique look at how various institutions celebrate college football's most sacred day of the week.

"Game Day USA" will be on display at the College Football Hall of Fame through December 31, 2011.