Ohio Historical Center hosts Smithsonian exhibition, Feb. 8-April 22, 2007

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ali…Pelé…Althea…Jackie…Mia…Lance. We recognize their names from the sports section and know their accomplishments as athletes. They, and others like them, have the mettle to succeed, to inspire, to make their mark. The dynamic interaction of athletes, audiences, and the media has had an extraordinary impact on American life over the past century and a half. A new traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian focuses on athletes’ participation in significant events and the social contexts that inescapably influenced them.

Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers will continue its seven-city, two-year national tour when it opens Feb. 8, 2007 at the Ohio Historical Center, I-71 and 17th Avenue in Columbus. The exhibition will remain on view through April 22, 2007. Admission to the Center is $7 for adults and $3 for students. Parking is $4 per person.

The Ohio Historical Society will celebrate the exhibition’s opening with a Tailgate Party and special evening hours on Saturday, Feb. 10, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Ohio Historical Center. Fans are invited to experience all the fun that surrounds sports and tailgating and to be among the first to view the new exhibition. Event includes the history of tailgating, the perfect tailgate foods, games inspired by tailgating and athletes featured in the exhibit, plus a chance to compete in all sorts of fun trivia contests. Admission is $5 and $3 for members.

Sports was developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Behring Center and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Audi is the exclusive national sponsor of the exhibition.

The exhibition focuses on 35 athletes and their performances in 17 different sports. Artifacts selected emphasize such issues as women's changing roles, racial and ethnic integration, the emergence of sports celebrities and superstars, nationalism, perceptions about human physical limitations, and technological breakthroughs that enhanced performance and participation. Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers reminds visitors of all these issues that athletes encounter and the effect their personal victories, both on and off the field, exert on the nation’s consciousness.

“The exhibition vividly portrays the men and women who pioneered, performed better, influenced their sport, championed their country, race or sex, and helped others to achieve,” stated Ellen Roney Hughes, the exhibition’s curator and a cultural historian at the Museum of American History. “These individuals broke records for themselves and broke barriers for all.”

Spotlighting the Smithsonian's sports collection, the exhibition opens with Abraham Lincoln’s handball and closes with Michael Jordan’s basketball jersey. Gertrude Ederle’s English Channel swim goggles, Roberto Clemente’s batting helmet, Lance Armstrong’s yellow jersey and a “Miracle on Ice” hockey shirt are among the dozens of artifacts.

“Audi is proud to be working with the Smithsonian Institution in sponsoring this exhibition so that it can motivate and inspire future pioneers in all fields of endeavor,” stated Stephen Berkov, Director of Marketing, Audi of America, Inc. “These athletes demonstrate so vividly that it is truly greater to lead than follow--and that the possibilities of the future can be very different from the reality of today.”

The exhibition also features a short video that further explores the athletes featured in the section “More than Sports Champions.” Produced and donated by The History Channel, the video is narrated by basketball legend Bill Russell. It looks at the athletes, such as Billie Jean King, Roberto Clemente and Mohammad Ali, who take their roles as public figures seriously and move beyond being sports champions to become champions for a cause.

An interactive Web site has been developed and includes a virtual tour of the exhibition, resource lists, a historical timeline and sports trivia. Visit the virtual exhibition at www.americanhistory.si.edu/sports.

The national traveling exhibition is complemented by a small-format, full-color book by Hughes with a foreword by basketball legend Bill Russell. “Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers” is published by Scala Publishers. For more information, visit www.scalapublishers.com.

Audi of America is headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and markets a line of premium vehicles. For more information about Audi, visit www.audiusa.com.

SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play, including museums, libraries, science centers, historical societies, community centers, botanical gardens, schools and shopping malls. Exhibition descriptions and tour schedules are available at www.sites.si.edu

To complement the Sports exhibition from the Smithsonian, the Ohio Historical Society will display some artifacts from its own collections and also from The Ohio State University Archives and the Jack Nicklaus Museum on the OSU campus. Under the theme Buckeye Sports Legends, the OSU display will include the camera and journal that Jesse Owens took with him to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and trophies and awards given to Coach Woody Hayes. The OHS display, People, Places, Oddities, Events and Traditions will include five iconic objects and a number of photographs from the Society’s collections. One of the artifacts is the racing suit Bobby Rahal wore in 1986 when he won the Indianapolis 500 by traveling at an average speed of 170.7222 miles per hour.

Note to reporters: To arrange an interview with Ellen Hughes, the curator of Sports, please contact Kathy Hoke, OHS manager of communications and media relations, at 614.297.2314 or khoke@ohiohistory.org

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