Strawberry Crest’s new track and field trophy idea is in great taste.
Is there a cooler sight in any sports championship game than an NHL player hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head? I don’t think so.
So, when I’m told that Strawberry Crest’s track and field team is trying to kickstart a crosstown rivalry series with a traveling trophy “like the Stanley Cup,” in coach Ben Henderson’s words, of course I’m all for it. Big traveling trophies are the best, especially when they’re unique. The Redman Cup is much easier on the eyes than the FHSAA’s cookie-cutter trophies, even though those are generally more important on a state-wide level. If you’re going to introduce a traveling trophy, shoot for the moon.
The Stanley Cup is what all other trophies want to be when they grow up. It’s been partied with, used as an actual cup and a cereal bowl, lost and found in the bottom of a pool and has traveled around the world. It’s going to get so many more names added to it that, one day, it might not be holdable by anyone but the Mountain. It’s still going to be the coolest when it has to be transported by forklift.
Nothing is cooler. But what else is cool? I’ve got some favorites.
Let me start with what might be an unpopular opinion: the Vince Lombardi trophy stinks. Nothing is cool about a one-dimensional hunk of metal that gets completely smudged by Tom Brady’s fingerprints in five seconds. The Grey Cup is professional football’s answer to the Stanley Cup (and not just because it’s also big in Canada). That’s what a real pro football championship trophy looks like. As an added bonus, the actual cup part of the Grey Cup has handles for easier lifting above your head on the field.
The College Football Playoff championship trophy is a little better than the Lombardi, but still could use a redesign. The old BCS crystal balls were cool to look at but far too fragile. The rivalry trophies, on the other hand, are equal parts weird and cool. Minnesota and Wisconsin have been playing for a giant axe for the last 71 years. Indiana and Purdue fight over a bucket. Cincinnati and Louisville used to compete for the Nail Keg. OK, maybe they’re more weird than they are cool, but the novelty is part of what makes college football so much fun.
I’m a huge fan of the NBA’s Larry O’Brien trophy. But I have to admit that what really sold me on it was a 2011 commercial featuring Magic Johnson, Lamar Odom and James Worthy where Odom learns that the trophy has two secret compartments: the upper half of the basketball lifts to reveal a guacamole bowl, and the base of the trophy is actually a heated tray for nacho cheese. I’ve been hungry ever since then.
The “Big Gold Belt” from the NWA, WCW and WWE was awesome. If you’re pretty familiar with any of those wrestling promotions, you’ve seen it. Ric Flair won it at various points in all three promotions over 30-something years. Every sports team ever likes to have wrestling belts on deck these days because of that belt. If you don’t believe me, go to a Plant City Dolphins Midgets football game — theirs is even customized.
