If you ever get the opportunity to visit the International Swimming Hall of Fame Museum in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida … don’t. In fact, turn in the opposite direction and walk away. You’d be better off rolling your $8 in fish entrails and feeding it to seagulls. At least that way, you’d know it was money well wasted.
Because I’m a firm believer in patronizing local businesses and “seeing the sights” in a new city, I was excited to visit the ISHOF. Every street corner near the ocean has signs pointing you to this tourist hotspot. And while I don’t swim, I can appreciate the dedication athletes have to their sport. (Well, that and Speedo had an exhibit there that I wanted to see. Duh.)
The ISHOF sits on the intercostal waterway a quarter mile from the Atlantic Ocean. To say its locale is prime real estate would be an understatement. The buildings are surround by $2 and $3 million yachts as far as the eye can see. To look at it from the outside, it has a bit of kitschy, retro ‘60’s swagger to it. “This could be fun,” I told my friend Tracey. More untrue words have never been spoken.
When you first walk in, you’re greeted by a lonely looking mannequin that, I assume, is supposed to represent Olympic medalist Mark Spitz. “Is that Burt Reynolds?” my friend Tracey asked. A hand painted placard on the wall states “World’s Greatest Olympic Swimmer”. Upon closer examination, there’s a hastily added “2nd” scrawled on top of it. Seems when Michael Phelps usurped Spitz’s record, the ISHOF had to scramble to change the verbiage. Maybe there were budgetary restraints or something.
Speaking of Phelps, the museum is practically devoid of any mention to him. In this sport, he’s a living legend, and, yet, I think I spotted only one Wheaties box with his picture on it. Let’s face it … the kid is probably just a flash in the pan, right? The museum probably wonders why re-do an entire museum just to honor a pothead?
The building is a hodge-podge of strewn-together Olympic medals, exhibits and posters. It has the Feng Shui of a crazy person. Oh sure, they try to take you through the history of swimming from a chronological perspective … and fail miserably. It was like being in Esther Williams’ basement … if Esther Williams was a hoarder.
My friend Tracey put it best when he likened the ISHOF to Paris Hilton. “It looks pretty on the outside, but the inside is a MESS.” Instead of having doors to keep wandering patrons out of certain areas, they have decoratively placed bed sheets hanging from the rafters. And when I poked my head in to the museum’s off-limits conference room, I was appalled. It was a wall-to-wall fire hazard of paraphernalia and memorabilia that had yet to be haphazardly displayed.
I lasted about 30 minutes before I wanted to drown myself in the nearby pool. My only hope is that Greg Louganis gets a bunch of his gays together and they have an extreme ISHOF makeover. It’s their only hope.