By Leon Stafford and Cameron McWhirter


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gary Stokan and George Morris started five years ago with a simple suggestion.
Related


More Sports stories »



The two Atlanta sports leaders knew that attendance at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., had not met expectations.
The stadium-shaped hall opened in 1995 to promises of 200,000 annual visitors, but attendance dwindled to about 60,000 a year over the past decade.
So Stokan, president of the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and Morris, a college football hall of famer himself, made a quiet pitch to the hall’s leadership, the National Football Foundation: If you ever decide to leave South Bend, Atlanta would do the hall right.
On Thursday, Stokan announced that Atlanta beat out Dallas to be the new home of the hall in the fall of 2012.
“The spirit of Atlanta really came together to get this done,” Stokan said.
News of the 30-year deal came at a press conference full of pomp. Confetti rained. The Morehouse College marching band played. A televised counter ticked off the 1,000-plus days until opening.
The 50,000-square-foot building, which officials plan to locate near Centennial Olympic Park, will cost $50 million, they say.
Leaders are counting on corporate sponsorships of exhibits to pay for a good portion of the building. They say they have at least $11 million in clear commitments.
The new hall will pull in 500,000 visitors a year, its boosters say, in part because it will be in a region where college football is religion and in part because it will be in a booming entertainment district that includes the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola and Philips Arena.
Missing from Thursday’s revelry was Morris, who died in December 2007. Many in attendance credited Atlanta’s newest attraction to his hard work.
“I want to thank George Morris, Georgia Tech All American and College Football Hall of Fame member,” Stokan said.
Failed expectations
The move may be a boost for Atlanta, but it’s a loss for South Bend. On Friday, a day after the announcement, South Bend Mayor Stephen Luecke said the Rust Belt city is looking for a new tenant for the building. And property owners there are left with $11 million in bonds still to pay off.
Luecke said he was on the City Council when South Bend wooed the hall, and he was a strong supporter of the deal. The agreement called for the hall to be in South Bend for 40 years but had a clause allowing the NFF to break the lease. He said the hall had been doing better in recent years and likely will have its second-best attendance record this year. But he said NFF board members wanted to move to a larger market, and they avoided discussions with South Bend officials.
What has Luecke learned from this process?
“Make sure you got a good pre-nup when you sign up with somebody,” he said.
Asked if the NFF was going to help the city with its bonds now, the mayor said, “We’re not counting on that.”
City sees opportunity
This is not Atlanta’s first attempt at the College Football Hall of Fame. The city made a pitch the year before Atlanta played host to the 1996 Summer Olympics.
“We were in the running in ’95, but we got into it late,” said Dennis Caniglia, president of Atlanta’s NFF chapter.
And it’s not the first time the city has sought a hall of fame. In 2006, it lost the NASCAR Hall of Fame to Charlotte after putting $102 million in proposed city and state funding behind the deal.
After the NASCAR campaign, Atlanta leaders learned to “get there before the competition,” said Central Atlanta Progress president A.J. Robinson, who led the NASCAR effort.
Atlanta’s competition for the College Football Hall of Fame came from the same city that is the NFF’s home: Dallas. In a four-page letter to the NFF, Dallas Mayor Thomas Leppert and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach offered to pay to move the museum and house it in a temporary location while the new museum was built. Among the deal’s backers were billionaire T. Boone Pickens and former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman.
Atlanta officials have not provided the city’s formal proposal, despite repeated requests. What is known is that it includes $5 million from the Chick-fil-A Bowl, $5 million from Atlanta-based fast-food giant Chick-fil-A and a $1 million grant from the Atlanta Development Authority.
Stokan said more money could be coming from the city development authority, SunTrust Bank and the state. State funding would require legislative approval, he said. But he declined to specify the amount, and calls to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office were not returned.
A person closely involved in the Dallas offer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that in this economy, city officials did not want to make an offer that would require too much public money up front.
The official said when they saw the offer from Atlanta, “Our jaws fell open a little bit.” This person declined to disclose details of Atlanta’s bid.
Stokan likes to talk about Atlanta being the sports capital of the world, despite the eye-rolling, laughs or challenges the statement elicits from many.
The city has played host to just about every important game in the nation, he’ll point out, including Super Bowls, NCAA Men’s Basketball championships, a PGA Championship and the Olympics.
“Gary deserves a good piece of the credit [for the relocation of the College Football Hall of Fame] because he is passionate about college football,” said A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, which is charged with the economic development of downtown Atlanta.
Al Lesar, reporter for the South Bend Tribune, contributed to this article.



How Atlanta lured College Football Hall of Fame *| ajc.com