New England – Fall 2010 – Day 10: Corning to Lee

We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and looked to move on early as we had decided to stop off at Springfield to see the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Springfield Armory. When I say stop off we were in fact over-shooting Lee by about 30 miles because the following day we were heading onto Newport and wanted to visit Mystic en route.
Since Niagara we had repacked so that we only needed one bag in the hotel while the other, filled with dirty clothes, could remain in the boot (trunk) of the car.
When I took the baggage out to the car I twinged my back, although it was not as bad as sometimes I knew that it was not going to get much better sitting in a car for hours on end.
We found the Basketball Hall of Fame without a problem and got parked up. I was stiff getting out of the car but it eased as I walked in.
The BHoF was hugely impressive; we started on the top floor which was basically a gallery with the inductees listed in order of their induction, the walls are covered with photos and below that there are display cabinets with artifacts related to the inductees. Out of too many things to list I remember the ball with which Wilt Chamberlain scored his 25000th point.
The next floor down had galleries featuring coaches and players but with an emphasis on Michael Jordan. Amongst his life story I found no evidence for something I believe about him so anyone can support me in this if they find any evidence for it. I believe Michael picked 23 as his number because his older brother played in 45 and he would be happy to be half the player his brother was.
Finally the ground floor has a hardwood court and racks of balls which anyone can use. Amongst the miscellaneous shirts, balls and shoes on display there are interactive exhibits, you can try to jump up for hanging balls to test your rebounding skills and on a small court you can play virtual basketball against the computer.
While we were there also on display was the Chris Webber Collection. This is comprised of African-American art and cultural artifacts dating back to the 1700s. Included items like first-edition books by Booker T. Washington, and personal writings from Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. enhance the cultural and social significance of the exhibit. It occurred to us that he may have been inspired to collect such items after April 5, 1993, at Michigan's second consecutive NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship game, Webber called a time-out with 11 seconds left in the game when his team, down 73–71, did not have any remaining, resulting in a technical foul that effectively clinched the game for North Carolina. The game marked the end of Webber's acclaimed two year collegiate basketball career. In the collection is a very kind letter from Bill Clinton, then president, he hand wrote:

April 9, 1992

Dear Chris,

I have been thinking of you a lot since I sat glued to the TV during the championship game.
I know that there may be nothing I or anyone else can say to ease the pain and discouragement of what happened.
Still, for whatever it's worth, you, and your team, were terrific. And part of playing for high stakes under great pressure is the constant risk of error. I know. I have lost two political races and made countless mistakes over the last twenty years. What matters is the intensity, integrity, and courage you bring to the effort. That is certainly what you have done. You can always regret what occurred but don't let it get you down or take away the satisfaction of what you have accomplished.
You have a great future. Hang in there.
Sincerely, Bill Clinton
Surely receiving such a letter may have inspired him to collect in this area.
We were slightly disappointed that although it is described in one of our guide books we did not see a moving pavement from which you try to shoot baskets in a series of “Hoops through the Ages”. I suspect it is a device they set up when the hall is busier.
There was a slightly pointed series of posters which displayed the following:
1962 Wilt Chamberlain – salary $65,000 – averaged over 50 points per game.
1971 Kareem Abdul Jabbar – salary $249,996 – averaged over 31 points per game.
2005 Lebron James – salary $4,320,360 – averaged over 27 points per game.
I wonder what salary Wilt Chamberlain could command playing today?
Before I move on I would mention one of the 2010 inductees, Bob Hurley Snr. He is described as a legend among coaches at any level; Bob Hurley has led St. Anthony's High School in Jersey City, New Jersey to 25 State Parochial School championships, three USA Today national titles and over 900 wins. Hurley gained national attention when his son Bobby graduated and became a four-year starter and All-American at Duke University. Bobby, along with Grant Hill and Christian Laettner, led Duke to two NCAA titles. Over the years, Hurley has been offered a number of college coaching jobs. He has turned them all down.
My only concern is that he is one of only three high school coaches inducted and he was more famous as a father than for doing such a great job himself.
After we finished at the BHoF we set off again to visit the Springfield Armory, we had an address which we put into the SatNav but we still found ourselves sitting in a school’s car park. I asked a couple of students who directed me to the school administration and they in turn directed us to the Armory which was in the same set of grounds – it was all a bit low-key.
The Springfield Armory was the primary center for the manufacture of U.S. military small arms and the site of many important technological advances in gun manufacture. Many different models produced at the armory from 1794 to 1968 were referred to as "Springfield rifles". The other major gun manufacturing center was the Harpers Ferry Armory, until its destruction during the American Civil War. It is now the home of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site. It was a free museum and we had an hour to enjoy it before it closed at 5.00pm.
We watched an introductory video and as we progressed round the exhibits there were brilliant explanatory videos which showed how the various stages of firearms worked from muzzle loading to fully automatic. The museum was in two parts, one for the huge range of firearms and weapons they had collected there and the other for the developing industrial machinery used to make the weapons.
Soon after five we were back on the road to the Quality Inn at Lee, which featured in the hotel, strangely, The Bombay Indian Restaurant. Having driven as much it was tempting but it seemed expensive and Indian is a cuisine where you have to be in that mood.
After checking through the various pamphlets in the room we decided to drive into Lee and choose between a sports bar and a family restaurant.
Both restaurants had addresses on Main Street so it was a lottery as to which appeared first – The Locker Room Sports Bar was the winner. We parked on the street and headed in. We got seats at a table by the door and were greeted by the bar manager. We waited a while at our table and eventually one of the waitresses took our drinks order. Clearly we were not specific enough in that we would prefer our drinks that particular evening. We had menus and had decided on our choices but nobody seemed that interested.
The bar manager, who was an English guy from Essex, managed to point his staff in our direction again and we got our drinks, we also managed to order a pizza for me and chicken wings and salad for Julia. In conversation it emerged that he had spent the summer coaching at sports camps and was now doing this job through the winter. Strangely he found it much more surprising that we were there as tourists.
Being a sports bar we were not surprised to see local teams celebrated with displays round the bar area, their most successful sporting outfit was the local high school’s ladies basketball team and apparently they were well represented on the waiting staff. Perhaps they play a very physical brand of the game in that area and have sustained head injuries affecting their memories. Waitresses were often wandering round the bar offering orders to all and sundry before someone claimed their meal. Near us a group of three all got their starters together then two of them were served their main course and offered dessert before the third member of the group got her main course. When we got our meals they were fine except that it arrived with an extra large salad along with the normal sized one – we rejected it but still got charged for it until our Essex friend intervened.
Although it was the most disorganized staff we were quite happy with the evening, the food and drink were good, we were in no hurry and there was a good atmosphere.
When we returned to the hotel; the car park was absolutely packed and the Indian Restaurant was throbbing so perhaps it was well worth the high prices.