07-12-2018, 07:50 PM
From Fran Tarkenton's cleats to leather helmet dear to Bud Grant, Vikings' history showcased in new museum
When the new Vikings Museum opens to the public on July 25, fans can plunk down the $20 admission fee, head over to team headquarters in Eagan and enjoy interactive displays, a 360-degree video theater, classic stories on Bud Grant, Jim Marshall, Fran Tarkenton, Bob Kump …
Wait. Who the heck is Bob Kump?
Well, Bob Kump is none other than the guy who somehow made it out of Met Stadium with the crossbar from the north end zone goal post during the post-game mayhem of Dec. 26, 1976.
“The last NFC Championship game the Vikings ever won,” said Kump, who was 23 when the Vikings beat the Rams that day to reach the last of their four Super Bowls. “That crossbar sat in my garage here for over 40 years. Honest to God, I think I’ve jinxed the Vikings all these years with that thing in my garage. I felt guilty having it, but I didn’t want to throw it away or recycle it.”
Kump found the “perfect solution” when the Vikings decided to get creative with their vision for how to tell the franchise’s history through an expansive museum located on the first floor of the Twin Cities Orthopedics Sports Medicine Center next door to the team’s TCO Performance Center.
“It became clear to us that the story of the Vikings is really a collection of stories about people,” said Erin Swartz, director of brand & creative and the person who spearheaded the museum project that began in 2014. “People gather and then there are these epic moments in our history that draw us all together.”
Swartz and her team have gathered thousands of artifacts and stories. Bob Kump is but one example of the stories that surfaced as Swartz and team archive coordinator Zach Tarrant kept digging.
“You just start going down a rabbit hole,” Swartz said. “You know you need items to tell a story about ‘X.’ You start looking around and pretty soon you meet a guy who tells you he knows a guy. And then that guy knows another guy, and before you know it, you got this web of people.”
http://www.startribune.com/from-fran-tar...488035101/
When the new Vikings Museum opens to the public on July 25, fans can plunk down the $20 admission fee, head over to team headquarters in Eagan and enjoy interactive displays, a 360-degree video theater, classic stories on Bud Grant, Jim Marshall, Fran Tarkenton, Bob Kump …
Wait. Who the heck is Bob Kump?
Well, Bob Kump is none other than the guy who somehow made it out of Met Stadium with the crossbar from the north end zone goal post during the post-game mayhem of Dec. 26, 1976.
“The last NFC Championship game the Vikings ever won,” said Kump, who was 23 when the Vikings beat the Rams that day to reach the last of their four Super Bowls. “That crossbar sat in my garage here for over 40 years. Honest to God, I think I’ve jinxed the Vikings all these years with that thing in my garage. I felt guilty having it, but I didn’t want to throw it away or recycle it.”
Kump found the “perfect solution” when the Vikings decided to get creative with their vision for how to tell the franchise’s history through an expansive museum located on the first floor of the Twin Cities Orthopedics Sports Medicine Center next door to the team’s TCO Performance Center.
“It became clear to us that the story of the Vikings is really a collection of stories about people,” said Erin Swartz, director of brand & creative and the person who spearheaded the museum project that began in 2014. “People gather and then there are these epic moments in our history that draw us all together.”
Swartz and her team have gathered thousands of artifacts and stories. Bob Kump is but one example of the stories that surfaced as Swartz and team archive coordinator Zach Tarrant kept digging.
“You just start going down a rabbit hole,” Swartz said. “You know you need items to tell a story about ‘X.’ You start looking around and pretty soon you meet a guy who tells you he knows a guy. And then that guy knows another guy, and before you know it, you got this web of people.”
http://www.startribune.com/from-fran-tar...488035101/
