The responsibility for such a project, of course, hardly lands solely on Sports Legends - it's just the most visible and most successful sports museum in town. There isn't any entity in the city or state putting basketball, or its legendary players and personalities, on the type of pedestal on which the Colts, Ravens and Orioles sit. Considering that two Baltimore schools won national championships in the 1970s - Webster's Morgan team in NCAA Division II and Coppin State in the NAIA - and the steady flow of talent produced in the past 40 years, that's inexcusable.
The talk among the men who were contemporaries of Webster's at Edmondson High and Morgan State in the 1970s, who attended Webster's wakes and funeral, tells you the time has come. Several gather monthly in an informal group that calls itself "One Baltimore." Figuring out how to keep the memories of the great names before and after them alive is always part of the discussion, and it was again Friday outside Greater New Hope Baptist Church, down the street from Coppin State, as Webster was being eulogized.
As unpleasant as it is to suggest it, Webster's coach at Morgan, Nat Frazier - so emotional as he spoke over his former player's casket Friday - isn't getting any younger.
Honoring the greats while they are still alive - an opportunity missed with Webster - should be motivation enough for anybody to move the process along. It doesn't matter anymore whether the big museum near the ballparks does it or whether it happens elsewhere. As long as it is planned out someplace besides a funeral.
Listen to David Steele on Mondays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. on Fox Sports 1370 AM.
points after
* It's probably just a coincidence that John Madden retired not long after Brett Favre did.
* The more you see contrived events like the schedule-announcement special, the easier it is to pick a side in the cable companies vs. NFL Network dispute. Go, cable companies.
* Not to rain on Gary Sheffield's parade, but he is the fifth member of the 500-home run club to be tied to performance-enhancing drugs. Six, if you count Manny Ramirez, and Jose Canseco counts him (or at least suspects him), and Canseco hasn't been wrong yet.
* Then again, three members accomplished the feat during the segregation era, so the list was never that pure to begin with.
* The NBA playoffs are going to drag on from now until the end of eternity, and I'll do everything in my power not to miss a second of them.
