Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village to Serve as Site for NCAA D-III Championships
Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village will be the site of three NCAA championships awarded to the city of Canton for the 2020-2022 seasons. Visit Canton, the Stark County Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, partnered with the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) as the official NCAA host institution to submit 17 NCAA championship bid proposals. The Pro Football Hall of Fame collaborated with the groups to attract the title games to Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village.
Canton and the OAC have been selected to host the 2020 and 2021 NCAA Division III Football Championships and the 2022 NCAA Division III Men’s Volleyball Championship.
All three events will take place at Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village, a $600 million mixed-use development under way on the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s campus.
The 2020 and 2021 NCAA Division III Football Championships will be played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, a world-class sports and entertainment complex that will open this summer for the 2017 Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls. The 2022 NCAA Division III Men’s Volleyball Championship will be held in the Performance Center at Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village.
“We are thrilled to host the NCAA championship games in Canton and showcase Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village,” Steve Strawbridge, chief administrative officer at the Pro Football Hall of Fame commented. “Our team will be ready to support Visit Canton and the OAC to provide a great experience for the athletes and fans attending these events.”
Bidding for 84 of 90 NCAA championships began in July 2016 and more than 3,000 bid applications were ultimately submitted. Each sport committee, per division, selected the host sites it believed would provide the ultimate experience for the respective student-athletes, resulting in more than 500 total championship event sites being awarded. More than 54,000 student-athletes compete in NCAA championships each year.
Pro Football's First African American Quarterback
Warren Moon is widely known as the first African American quarterback enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Willie Thrower of the Chicago Bears, in 1953, holds the distinction as the first modern-era African American quarterback to play in the National Football League. While the Pro Football Hall of Fame preserves the history of American football, it recently was brought to the Hall’s attention that in 1951 the Canadian Football League had an African American starting quarterback.
Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village Goes Green
GreenSportsBlog’s occasional series, “Green-Sports Corporate All Stars” highlights companies that are taking taking the lead at the intersection of Green + Sports. Today’s installment features energy efficiency leader Johnson Controls partnering with the Pro Football Hall of Fame (PFHOF) as it expands from its current museum and football stadium footprint into a never-seen-before “football village.” The following article was written by GreenSportsBlog.