City: Birmingham, AL

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (205) 323-6665

Address: 2150 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. North

Description: Sports in Alabama, especially on the collegiate level, have often been compared to religion for the heartfelt emotion and passion they elicit. For many fans, that’s probably selling their devotion to sports a bit short. Without professional franchises in the state (except for temporary forays into non-NFL league football teams mainly in the 1970s and 1980s), college sports are the end-all-be-all for devotees. Perhaps that’s why the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame (ASHF) has been such a success since its founding in 1967. The 33,000-square-foot building houses over 5,000 sporting artifacts from Alabama legends such as Hank Aaron, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, and Carl Lewis. Indeed, football luminaries from Alabama alone could fill their own museum: Bart Starr, Paul “Bear” Bryant, Joe Namath, Bo Jackson, Bobby Bowden, Pat Sullivan, Kenny Stabler, to name a few. Each year the ASHF inducts new sports personalities at an annual banquet. The facility is, appropriately, across the street from the Southeastern Conference headquarters (this highly successful college athletic conference distributed a remarkable $209 million to its members in 2009–2010).