TIFTON — The sporting life of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College covers more than 100 years of history and multiple sports.

And now viewers can see a bit of it all, thanks to an exhibit at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture.

ABAC’s “Glory Days” exhibit is in the Gallery and open Tuesdays-Fridays from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturdays. It will remain open through July 5. Besides viewing the Glory Days at the museum, visitors can don the Glory Days. T-shirts are for sale in the gallery for $20.

Polly Huff serves as the museum’s curator.

“She did a great job,” said ABAC’s Director of Public Relations Emeritus, Mike Chason.

“The GMA’s been a fabulous home for this event,” said Alan Kramer, ABAC’s athletics director.

This is the first time the material has been together in a single place. Boards showing athletic achievements were in Tift Hall. One of the jerseys brought over had been hanging at John Hunt Town Center at ABAC Place.

Displays range from football to basketball, soccer to cheerleading, golf, baseball and tennis. All kinds of memorabilia are on display and represent not just athletes’ perspective, but students as well.

Part of the student experience are a line of beanies or “rat hats.” Chason said most dated back to World War II. With many Americans dedicated to war service, he said enrollment fell to “less than 100 students.” Even students on campus were heavily involved in the war effort. Chason said ABAC’s contributions included crops planted and canning of what was harvested.

Two quilts are on display as well, one made out of T-shirts that belonged to Chason and the other from T-shirts collected by Newell “Sarge” Dorsey. Many of the designs on Dorsey’s quilt celebrate ABAC’s intramurals. Kramer said participation in intramurals is on the rise.

Some memorabilia has come in after the exhibit opened.

Kramer said the latest addition to the collection was the baseball bat of Chuck DeVane. DeVane brought the bat with him when he was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame in April. The bat was certainly a magic one — DeVane hit over .400 during both of his seasons at the school.

Another 2018 inductee with memorabilia is Jenni Collins Smith, whose ABAC basketball jersey is on display. Smith, who wore No. 44, had a career high of 44 points in a game against Brewton-Parker.

The items are new and old. There are pieces from the 1930s and there are also pieces from two more recent ABAC athletes, golfer Boo Weekley and baseball player Kyle Farnsworth.

Farnsworth, in particular, remains a verbal supporter of the diamond Stallions. He frequently tweeted words of encouragement to the squad during the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association playoffs. Among the Farnsworth lot is a bobblehead figurine, issued at a Chicago Cubs game. Kramer and Chason think he might be the only person from ABAC to have an officially licensed bobblehead.

Football began when ABAC’s campus was known as Second District Agricultural and Mechanical. The biggest wins for the squad were during its days at Georgia State College for Men, when the Rams defeated the University of Miami twice, once in 1932 and also in 1933. When the college became known as ABAC in 1934, football was retained until a fire burned down the gymnasium and football equipment in 1937.

There are photographs from the Georgia State days and a letterman’s sweater from Clayt Hurst, who won honors in football and basketball. Hurst wore the green and gold of ABAC.

ABAC’s teams have combined for five national championships, two by head coach Norman “Red” Hill in men’s tennis (1984 and 1999). Three others are in softball.

“Ironically the (national) softball (titles) are by three different coaches,” Chason said. Ellen Vickers (1991), Greg Tanner (1995) and Donna Campbell (1996) each won a championship.

The collection also includes memorabilia from the Fabulous Golddusters, the dance group that was popular wherever they went.

“They were a big hit at the Sunbelt Expo,” said Chason. “The big thing was the high schools. They went to a lot of high schools, civic clubs, that type of thing.”

If the costumes were not enough to get a group into a frenzy, they used noisemakers. An example of those is also on display.

All varsity sports are represented in the museum, including ABAC’s shortest-lived one: volleyball.

“The state decided they wanted to move away from basketball a little bit,” said Chason. “Volleyball was an easier sport to fund.”

ABAC fielded a volleyball team from 1995-2000. Though limited in time on campus, it followed in the successful footsteps by winning the NJCAA Region XVII title under head coach Alton Hudgins.

From a more recent sport that stuck around, the inaugural soccer ball is on display, dropped at E.B. Hamilton Complex out of what Chason dubbed the “soccer-copter” for ABAC President David Bridges to kick into the net. That started the sport at the college. The next year, a field was ready for them on campus.

“Craig Sowell was great to work with,” said Kramer about Sowell’s help starting soccer. Sowell is Tift County’s recreation director and was a 2017 Hall of Fame inductee.