Football's Numerous Traveling Trophies

The Cy-Hawk Trophy is being replaced.

That’s getting something half-right. Getting rid of the trophy altogether would be the best solution.  That won’t happen, of course. A corporate sponsor will commission a new trophy. The Iowa Corn Growers Association apparently will be involved. More dollars will change hands in amateur sports.

The number of traveling trophies in college football should be decreased, not increased. The more there are, the less value each carries. Rivalry trophies should evolve naturally and have a slice of history behind them.

Floyd of Rosedale is, to me, the perfect rivalry trophy. For one thing, it couldn’t be more distinctive. A big bronzed pig? Fantastic!

also see: trophies, custom pins and corporate awards

Community Rallies to Make Seiling Memorial Bench Possible

There will be a bench at Traub’s Doggies in memory of Officer Ray, thanks to the generosity of the Emmaus community who collectively donated more than $1500 to the Ray Seiling Memorial Fund. Ray Seiling, the Emmaus auxiliary police officer and Hanover Township code enforcement officer who passed away unexpectedly in May was a fixture on the Triangle during his years of service in the borough and Traub’s was the officer’s favorite lunch spot.

Emmaus Borough Manager Craig Neely is pleased with the planned location. “Though we can say that Ray ‘lunched’ at Traub’s, I always felt that he was still performing his duties while relaxing there,” he said in a recent e-mail about the planned tribute. “From the public’s perspective, being able to rely on a public servant is very important, and Ray’s habitual patronizing of Traub’s was, in my opinion, an important part of his beat.”
Following his death, the Ray Seiling Memorial Fund was established to raise money for the $1,475 bench. With the fund’s balance at only  $1,250, five Emmaus businesses came forward to donate the additional $225 needed to purchase the bench, according to Kathleen Haney of Haney Associates, Inc., in Emmaus, who has been one of the local business owners shepherding this project.

The donors are Joseph and Linda Abraham of The Impact Project, Inc.; John and Pam Pavlacka of J&K Pressure Cleaning, Inc. and Pam's Golden Scissors; Bill Rohrer of NewsWorking; and one anonymous business owner. Haney said Crown Trophy will donate a plaque for the bench.

Since raising money for the bench, Haney says additional donations have come in. Now there is enough money to purchase a brick in the Remembrance Garden at the Knauss Homestead in Seiling’s memory. Any future money raised will be donated to the Han-Le-Co Volunteer Fire Company, where Officer Seiling volunteered for 25 years, Haney says. Donations can be dropped off at any local KNBT branch until August 6.

also see: trophies, custom pins and corporate awards

Winthrop Harbor Softball Benefit Receives Mutual Aid

Fire and law enforcement personnel gathered Saturday at 38-Acre Park for a softball tournament benefit to help collect funds for the upcoming Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk For The Cure breast cancer awareness event. Jennifer Levin came up with the idea for the Mutual Aid 4 A Cure softball tournament along with friends Jennifer Kilpatrick and JoAnn Manders, who regularly walk in the Chicago breast cancer event. Another friend, Tricia Henoch, joined in to help with the benefit. The ladies team for the August cancer walk will be called Guns N’ Hoses 4 A Cure.

“This is the first time we’ve ever done this,” said Levin. The slow pitch, double-elimination tournament involved eight co-ed teams consisting of members and spouses from area fire and police departments, the Lake County Jail and Hazmat. About 88 participants and more than 100 spectators turned out for the event. At the end of the evening, Sacks N’ Racks won the tournament. The team consisted of Lake County Jail correctional officers. They won a trophy donated by Crown Trophy of Kenosha. Jackie Fagan was captain of the team.

also see: trophies, custom pins and corporate awards

NASCAR’s Oddball Trophies

NASCAR trophies through the years have run the gamut from the tiniest little brass gizmos with no character and little room for the drivers name, to some of the wildest, weirdest trophies in professional sports. Here's a quick look.

For winning a race at Martinsville the driver takes home one of the most sought after trophies in the sport - a Grandfather Clock. Valued at over $11,000 the clock is the most coveted trophy in all of NASCAR. Everybody wants a clock and the checkered flag that comes with it.

After body-slamming their race-cars around the mile and a half track just a few miles north of the Las Vegas strip, it seems fitting the winner's trophy looks more like a wrestling belt from the WWE.


Dover International Raceway is a treacherous one-mile concrete raceway located on Dover Downs Hotel & Casino property just north of Dover, DE. Somewhere along the way this speedway picked up the nickname, The Monster Mile for the beating it hands out over 500 laps of racing. It was only a matter of time before a trophy came along to reflect its personality. Rumor has it, Thing, of Fantastic Four fame, was the model for this monstrosity.

If there's a rock and roll heaven, they should be lucky enough to have a mondo-trophy like the winner of the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond receives. Now if only Alice Cooper would give up golf and take up racing.

Keeping with the guitar theme, winners of the Nationwide race at Nashville Superspeedway gets to take home this Sam Bass custom painted Gibson Guitar. (Nashville is Gibson's headquarters.)

It's been said that everything is bigger in Texas, even their boots. The winners trophy from the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway is this homage to Cowboy life. Handguns not included.

Win a race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA, and a bottle of Napa Valley's finest blush awaits the driver in victory lane. Now that's the way to chug a glass of wine.

Seems like the trophies match some of the racing personalities, doesn’t it!

High-Flying Cadets Net Trophies

Beaming air cadets scooped four national award trophies at the annual meeting of the Girls Venture Corps. Phoebe Barrie, aged 15, won the Doreen Ballard Trophy for the highest score in an aviation theory exam for air ability.

The other trophies were awarded to the whole Rotherham Girls Venture Corps. The haul included the Cecillia Jenkins Trophy for the best all round unit, won for the second year running. The girls were also runners-up in the Lady Leverhulme Cup, for service to the community, and the Australia Cup for the unit with the most aviation awards.
Core director Brenda Layne said the team had an enthusiastic leader who involved the girls in more activities than any other group.

Rotherham group commandant Nicola Jones said: “I am always proud of what we achieve as a unit. This is the icing on the cake.”

Lalita Patipaksiri Bound for Golf Stardom

For Lalita Patipaksiri, convenience has paid off. It was one of the reasons why she was named Orange County Player of the Year in 2005 and 2007. It was responsible for a spot on the second-team All-Big West as a sophomore. And now, as a junior, convenience has led Patipaksiri to the NCAA All-Star Team.

Golf is an expensive sport – a set of irons can range up to $3,000. When Patipaksiri began to golf, she became the third member of her family to play the sport. Her father, not wanting his daughter’s gift to go to waste, decided he would quit because the cost for three people playing golf would eventually add up, and he wanted to give his daughter an opportunity to play.

Patipaksiri’s decision to stick with golf, combined with her father’s decision to give up the sport, has resulted in much success for the third-year sociology major. From her time in elementary school to junior high, Patipaksiri collected over 100 trophies and awards. Although the competition has stiffened as the years progressed, Patipaksiri garnered about 50 CIF plaques and awards during her time at Cypress High School.

Among all of her trophies and awards, golf’s grueling time commitment has made her question her willingness to stick with the sport. An 18-hole round of golf typically ranges between four and six hours to complete.

However, the enjoyment Patipaksiri has for the game overrides the 5 a.m. wake-up calls for 6 a.m. practice, the time commitment that she devotes to the sport and the little time she gets to herself.

Patipaksiri’s ability to find enjoyment in golf’s long grind has led her to even more success. She has become the first Anteater to be named to the NCAA All-Star Team and will travel to Asia this summer, making stops in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China to compete in 16 tournaments over the course of 28 days.

This tournament presents a whole new set of challenges for Patipaksiri. She admits that she chose UC Irvine because it is only a few minutes away from her home in Cypress where she goes every weekend for private golf lessons. The longest and farthest she has been away from home was three weeks when she traveled to Maryland, but traveling to Japan, South Korea and China – places she has never visited before – will provide a whole new experience.

Patipaksiri will also experience a different level of competition. Besides playing alongside top women’s golfers representing Stanford University, University of Arizona and Yale, she will also be competing with international golfers.

So far, the 5-foot-1 golfer has used her short game to excel at the collegiate level and make up for her lack of size and power. Although she may not be as tall as Michelle Wie or have Lorena Ochoa’s combination of power and finesse, Patipaksiri knows that she has a chance to compete with the top women’s golfers of the Ladies of the Professional Golf Association, because her idol and inspiration Ai Miyazato, a 5-foot-2 golfer, has had success at the professional level.