A look inside the 'gaudy, loud' Mascot Hall of Fame

CHICAGO - At the end of November, in the middle of the night, a few weeks before the Mascot Hall of Fame opened in Whiting, Ind., the large, colorful snot that dangles from the front of the building blew away and rolled down Front Street.

Now please note: There is not a single metaphorical thing about that sentence. The day after Christmas, an actual Mascot Hall of Fame debuted in this small industrial dot of 5,000 outside Chicago, and on the facade of its $18 million complex is a giant purple mascot with a Mt. Rushmore schnoz, from which extends a snot the size of a bathtub.

A storm sent it flying, then bowling down the street around 2 a.m., past the recycling center, past the Whiting Little League field, past the Roosevelt Club building.

"We realized it only after the police called," Orestes Hernandez, the Hall's executive director, said. "We got this phone call - 'Uh, your, er, your booger is rolling down the street.' "

It was hard to miss.

The Mascot Hall of Fame, a decidedly irreverent monument to sports mascots, has been a bright spot for Whiting - a literal bright spot. About 25 minutes south of downtown Chicago, pull off I-90, and the