Sports & Spirit

The Appleton History Museum has a new exhibit starting tonight. You may want to check it out.

First from the Post-Crescent: Dan VanderPas column: 'Sports & Spirit': A new exhibit where Fox Cities athletes and fans can team up

Certainly, items worn by sports professionals with ties to the sports-crazy Fox Cities are interesting and make the past come alive. Who would have remembered that the football shoes Bleier, a four-time Super Bowl champion, wore while with the Steelers were two different sizes (10½ and 11) due to the war injuries the '64 Xavier High graduate incurred while in Vietnam?

And the scuffed-up bat Rodriguez used at Goodland Field during his first step on the way to an outlandishly rich contract in the bigs is a piece of our history, too.

But for me — a sports reporter who has covered the games people play in the Fox Cities for nearly 40 years — the upcoming exhibit will be about more than shirts, old clubs and footballs. It'll be about more than winning and losing, too.

What's precious about sports at all levels is that you don't have to be a star player or a member of a championship team to be an integral part of them. Sports are about camaraderie. They are a way to become involved in a pleasant diversion from the trials of daily life for participants and fans.

During my brief preview of the exhibit, I stood before a photo from a team that did its thing at the Appleton Curling Club during the '60s. You couldn't tell if this were a championship curling team or an also-ran. It didn't matter. They were all smiling. Through the history of Fox Cities sports, our games have brought us all together, just for the fun of it.

Channel 11 was there for a preview last night. Oh, video, too.

Here is the link to the exhibit site at the website.

I'll probably be checking this out at some point.