The official website for the Hall has a whole new look, and even a new website address: www.nwhof.org. (If you bookmarked the previous locations -- or committed their addresses to memory -- don't worry. They'll still get you to the new website.)
What's more, for the first time, it brings together what had been separate websites for the Hall's two facilities in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Waterloo, Iowa into a single location online.
The National Wrestling Hall of Fame website provides a wealth of information to wrestling fans and researchers no matter where they are in the world, including biographies of Hall of Fame honorees, photos of the two museums, and complete NCAA brackets going back to 1928. All these popular features -- and so much more -- are now available all together in one convenient, easy-to-use website.
Let's go inside the new NWHOF website and take a look around.
The new layout
The first thing a visitor who used the old website will notice about the new online home of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame is that it's much cleaner, more contemporary-looking ... without being trendy. It's incredibly easy to find your way around.
Let's take a quick tour of these major pages within the new NWHOF website:
Stillwater: This webpage is your link to the features that are a part of the original National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum that was dedicated in 1976.
Ask folks about the Stillwater facility, and many will immediately mention the Wrestling Hall of Fame, where individuals are honored for their achievements and contributions to the oldest and greatest sport. Both the actual building and the website feature separate sections for:
At the website, visitors can click on any of these categories and see a year-by-year listing of award recipients. Click on an honoree's name to read about that individual.
In addition to these National Wrestling Hall of Fame categories, the Stillwater section of the website also features a link to the separate website for the FILA Hall of Fame honoring international wrestlers, coaches and officials.
The Virtual Tour feature brings the Stillwater Hall of Fame & Museum to wrestling fans, no matter where they are ... allowing website visitors the chance to get a 360-degree view of the major displays inside the facility located near the Oklahoma State campus. Other online resources sure to be a hit with serious historians (as well as for settling friendly bar bets) are a compelling history of the sport, and, in PDF files, NCAA brackets going back to 1928, and NCAA Guides, annual publications that covered the rules, results and photos recapping college and high school wrestling from the previous year.
Waterloo: This set of pages takes the visitor to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum -- or at least a virtual version -- which was originally established in Iowa as a separate entity, and came under the National Hall of Fame umbrella in the summer of 2010.
The Waterloo portion of the website features pages for its unique Halls of Fame:
As with the Stillwater pages, visitors to any of the Waterloo Halls of Fame can see a year-by-year listing of honorees; click on an individual name for a biography. And, for wrestling fans who can't make the trip to the museum in the eastern Iowa city that is the hometown to Dan Gable, there's a Photo Tour that provides visuals of major highlights of the facility.
News: Stories of upcoming events at both Stillwater and Waterloo. Website visitors may choose news specifically for either museum, or both.
Merchandise: An online store, featuring wrestling apparel, gear, books, videos, and collectibles, among the wrestling-related items available for purchase from a visitor's home or work computer.
Support: No, not tech support ... but options for visitors to support the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, including an easy-to-use online form to make a one-time donation, as well explanations of planned giving options (through the Hall's Endowment Fund), and opportunities for corporations and other organizations to contribute to the financial strength of the facilities in Iowa and Oklahoma, and their outreach efforts.
Calendar/Events: A month-by-month display of happenings at the Stillwater and Waterloo museums, as well as major wrestling events throughout the nation.
State Chapters: Click on this link, and up pops a map of the United States. Click on a particular state, and the visitor is taken to that state's chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Why a new online home
Why the new website for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame?
"The new website at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame was developed with the intent of providing the public with more information about the sports heritage and its inductees," according to Lee Roy Smith, Executive Director of the Hall. "We want to expand our reach so that more people can become inspired about the sport and our website is a vital part of this objective. This is an ever-evolving investment for our organization and we invite the wrestling community's feedback on how we can make it better."
There are some more practical reasons as well.
"We wanted to integrate the two facilities (Stillwater and Waterloo) into a single website to offer a consistent, uniform experience for the online user," said Krista Graff, Development and Special Events Manager for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
"Another goal was to make the website easier to navigate," Graff continued. "The organization of the pages, and the uniform presentation of information on each page makes the new website easier to use."
"We also wanted to enhance the interface between the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and the individual state chapters. Now it's easy for someone who's visiting the Hall of Fame site to directly access the page of a chapter in a specific state, and provide each state chapter with a webpage format to make it easier for them to present information."
There are additional pluses for the new website, created by GuRuStu Group, a website design and development company based in Tulsa. Graff specifically cited the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's new online home offers a greater variety of merchandise for purchase, with a user-friendly interface, and the new calendar of events feature that alerts visitors to major upcoming events at the facilities, as well as in the sport.
The new website also has built-in flexibility to grow and add new features. In the future, the Hall of Fame plans to add new exhibits to its website (the African-American Experience is already online), and make its extensive collection of historic photos, films and videos available online.
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