Sept. 1, 2008

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Newly-renovated Heritage Hall, where the history of the University of Notre Dame athletics program is on display, officially re-opens Thursday (Sept. 4) on the second-floor concourse of the Joyce Center.

The Notre Dame Monogram Club allocated more than $600,000 for the improvements to Heritage Hall, which originally opened in 1988.

There are multiple display cases dedicated to each of Notre Dame’s 26 varsity sports, plus special areas to recognize Notre Dame’s 27 national championships and national award winners. An additional display lists all of Notre Dame’s first- and second-team All-Americans, as well as Academic All-America selections and NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship winners. That same display features 20 of the most accomplished Notre Dame student-athletes.

Also part of the renovations are displays highlighting sports like wrestling and field hockey that are no longer varsity offerings, plus cases highlighting Monogram Club leadership and awards, Notre Dame Stadium, Notre Dame’s walk-on tradition, RecSports, cheerleaders and mascots, athletic trainers and student managers, student welfare and development, the O.S.C.A.R.S, former University executive vice-president Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., and the Notre Dame band.

Additional display cases outside the entrance to the athletic administrative offices feature Notre Dame’s 2008 participation in the NCAA Hockey Frozen Four, Notre Dame’s 2008 swimming anniversary celebration (50 years for men, 25 for women), athletic facilities, Notre Dame’s athletic/academic tradition – plus photos of all of Notre Dame’s athletics directors.

Additional new displays featuring men’s and women’s basketball can be seen in the hallway between Gates 1 and 2 of the Joyce Center – adjacent to the basketball offices. In addition, there are new displays, in the Monogram Room at the east end of the concourse, that feature tributes to each of Notre Dame’s 27 national championship teams representing all sports.

Football displays on the concourse include an extensive historical timeline, along with cases devoted to Knute Rockne, uniforms, Irish mystique, Notre Dame on the silver screen, historical memorabilia, Notre Dame players and coaches in the Hall of Fame, and bowl games. Also on display, as part of the national awards section, are all seven Heisman Trophies.

1220 Exhibits, Inc., (manufacturing and installation) of Nashville, Tenn., Chicago, Ill., and Las Vegas, Nev. — and Gallagher & Associates (design group) of Bethesda, Md., and San Francisco, Calif., produced the displays.

— ND —