Gipper Touch vs. Traditional Hall of Fame: Why It’s Time to Modernize Your School Recognition

The world of education-based athletics is evolving fast — and so are expectations. Communities now judge athletic programs not just by performance on the field, but by how they present themselves off it. Modern facilities, digital scoreboards, and professional branding have become standard. Yet many schools still rely on outdated halls of fame and trophy cases that no longer reflect their programs’ success.

Traditional hall of fame displays are limited, hard to update, and quickly fade from attention. There’s more pressure than ever to recognize the full scope of achievement, from current athletes to alumni who helped build the program’s legacy. That’s why more athletic departments are modernizing with digital halls of fame — engaging, easy-to-update platforms that celebrate every athlete, preserve history, and showcase school pride with a professional polish. Here’s why it’s time your program did too.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• The current state of school halls of fame and their limitations
• Common hall of fame display alternatives
• How digital hall of fame software like Gipper Touch can revolutionize your hall of fame (and more)

What most school halls of fame look like today

Schools today use a mix of old and new recognition strategies. Common school hall of fame methods include:

• Physical displays: Trophy cases, plaques, banners, and bulletin boards
• Athletics websites: Online profiles or achievement pages
• Slideshows or digital screens: Rotating content on TVs around campus

Chances are you use one or more of these recognition strategies, and while they do showcase student success, they’re probably a lot of work for you to maintain and update.

The limitations of your current hall of fame

Let’s take a closer look at why traditional and alternative halls of fame struggle to meet today’s recognition demands.

Physical Displays: Trophy Cases, Wall Plaques, Banners, & Bulletin Boards

• Limited space: Trophy cases and walls fill up fast. When the case is full, newer achievements often push older ones aside.
• Expensive and time-consuming updates: Ordering new plaques or banners from vendors can take weeks. And installation can take even longer.
• History gets lost: With limited space, you’re forced to choose what stays up and what gets stored away.

Here are four signs it’s probably time to modernize your hall of fame.

Basic “Do-It-Yourself” Digital Displays: Slideshows, Google Slides, & Athletic Websites

Many ADs have turned to basic tools like Google Slides to scrape together a more modern hall of fame. While these digital “DIY” options can solve space problems, they come with their own frustrations:

• Time-consuming: Turning Google Slides or PowerPoint into a hall of fame is tedious and manual.
• Poor design quality: These tools usually lack the design features to make your result look professional.
• Complicated workflows: Managing and updating content across multiple screens can be a logistical headache, especially when the process is not collaborative.
• Unreliable technology: Basic tools can easily become slow to load or glitchy with too much content, creating a poor experience for viewers (and for the creators).

All of these DIY solutions also fall short on community engagement. Trophy cases and slideshows in your hallways require people to physically be on campus to see it. And while your website’s hall of fame page can be accessed outside of school walls, it might go weeks without a single visitor. 

Even if your community does get a chance to view your hall of fame, there’s no opportunity for them to interact with it. None of these solutions are built with a touchscreen-first approach, which means you’re missing out on crucial engagement from your community. 

It’s likely your current hall of fame isn’t the school pride engine you hoped it would be.

What is a digital hall of fame?

A digital hall of fame is a modern, interactive way to recognize athletes, showcase successes, and preserve school history. Instead of relying on plaques or slideshows, a digital hall of fame uses a touchscreen or web-based platform (or both!) to showcase athletes, teams, and alumni.

These digital hall of fame solutions allow you to:

• Digitize and preserve school history
• Highlight achievements with professional visuals
• Engage the community both on campus and online

Digital halls of fame are quickly becoming the go-to recognition tool for schools that want to modernize without losing tradition.

Plus, many of these solutions, like Gipper Touch, can be much more than just a hall of fame. Their fully customizable software can also support use cases like: 

• Athletes of the year
• Team championships 
• Records
• Notable alumni
• Athletic staff directory
• Facilities information 

With digital recognition solutions, you don’t have to limit yourself to just a hall of fame — you can proudly showcase every part of your athletic department.

Explore a Gipper Touch example from Green Level High School

Gipper Touch vs. Your current hall of fame

Let’s take a closer look at how a digital hall of fame software like Gipper Touch can directly address the limitations of your current solution.

Gipper Touch vs. Physical hall of fame

Physical hall of fame challenges:

• Limited space — your trophy case can only hold so much. What happens when it fills up?
• Lack of digital media lowers engagement
• Facility updates are slow and expensive — plus you have to rely on third-party vendors
• History gets lost — you have to sacrifice old accomplishments to make room for the new
• Requires in-person viewing

Gipper Touch advantages:

• Unlimited directories, pages, and content
• Include photos, videos, and more engaging digital content 
• One-click updates—no new trophy case installation required
• Preserve and display every achievement, forever
• Shareable link for parents, alumni, and fans anywhere
• Include photos, videos, and more engaging digital content

With Gipper Touch, you’re no longer restricted by walls or display cases. Recognition can grow as your program does, and you can build school pride in your hallways and online.

Plus, you can include engaging content that brings your history to life. Welcoming a new hall of fame inductee? Include a highlight video of their career best plays. Did one of your basketball players break the all-time scoring record? Include their action shots and even add a clip of the moment the record was broken.

You also don’t have to think of a digital hall of fame as a replacement for your physical hall of fame. Many ADs choose to keep their trophy cases intact and use a digital solution as an extension of their recognition. The combo can be powerful — proudly display your state championship trophy and showcase the game recap, player profiles, and video highlights right alongside it. Explore a real example from Tecumseh Athletics.

Gipper Touch vs. Your Athletics Website 

Traditional challenges:

• Limited structure and templates make creation difficult and time consuming
• Generic or outdated design doesn't produce a professional, branded result
• No physical, interactive capability on campus leads to low engagement

Gipper Touch advantages:

• Templates built specifically for school hall of fame use (and more)
• Professionally designed layouts with automatic branding
• Interactive touchscreen display for your campus

Your athletics website is great for providing basic information, like rosters, staff info, and schedules. But it probably doesn’t have a built-in “hall of fame” layout. So you’re probably struggling to create a hall of fame structure yourself, which can be time consuming and frustrating.

Gipper Touch has professionally-designed templates built specifically for the hall of fame use case. There’s no need for you to scrape together a structure that works with tools that are hard-to-use — it’s pre-built, user-friendly, and ready for your content.

Gipper Touch’s combo of high-quality visuals and touchscreen-first design create an experience that boosts community engagement both on-campus and online in a way that your website can’t.

Gipper Touch vs. Google Slides & On-Campus Slideshows

Traditional challenges:

• Requires juggling multiple tools
• Multi-step updates are time consuming and tedious
• Poor design and branding capabilities
• Lack of interactivity leads to lower engagement

Gipper Touch advantages:

• All-in-one platform for content creation and publishing
• Easy, one-click updates that save time
• Professional-grade design and branding tools
• Built for interactive touchscreens

With Gipper Touch, there’s no need to wrestle with multiple different tools to create content, update slides, and manage screens. The all-in-one solution means you can produce a better-quality result that takes far less time and effort. 

Why it’s time to modernize your current hall of fame

Your hall of fame should be a living, growing record of school pride—not a maintenance headache. If you’ve been struggling with your traditional hall of fame solution, now’s the time to go digital. 

Gipper Touch empowers schools to modernize recognition with an interactive, shareable, and beautifully designed platform that keeps pace with today’s digital world and opens up another level of community engagement.

“We want to make our athletic hallways a fun place for our fans and for our community, where they can come and not only attend a game, but they can see our history, or learn more about what our athletes did here. No one walks up and stares at a plaque, but they will interact with a touchscreen.” Jerry Schlabs, Athletic Director, East High School (WY) 

If you’re exploring hall of fame display alternatives or want to modernize your school hall of fame, Gipper Touch is your scalable solution to celebrate every achievement — past, present, and future.