Sports Illustrated's popular Hot Clicks asked Friday if the new Cy-Hawk trophy is "the worst trophy ever"? Believe it or not, there are harsher reviews.
I've never seen so much anger and hate aimed at an inanimate object. Twitter and Facebook were on fire with fan backlash. A whotv.com poll found 95% of voters hate the new trophy. SoundOFF emails flooded our inbox without a single vote of support for the new pewter hardware. We did find a few people at the fair who said they liked it, but once questions were asked outside the Iowa Corn Growers Association tent, it again turned ugly. (No one wants to be rude.) On a positive note, disdain for the trophy did bring Hawkeye and Cyclone fans together, not to mention Republicans and Democrats.
I'm confident the fine folks at the Iowa Corn Growers Association did not see this coming. They're nice people who had good intentions, along with an agenda. Iowa and Iowa State both signed off on the trophy, along with the big checks. Still, all parties involved knew thousands of fans disliked the previous Cy-Hawk trophy, which looked like it was built by an 8th grade shop class, and they thought the new look would go over well. It did not.
People don't like change, even when they say they want it. Some fans will warm to the trophy in time. However, the most frequent criticisms, that the farm family looks like it's from the 1930s, and the trophy has nothing to do with football, won't change.
Many other rivalry game trophies have no obvious link to football, but that axe or bucket or pig came about organically, not by sponsor-driven design.
I do think the artist shows great craftsmanship. The trophy is beautiful, it just doesn't fit. It would look at home many places---most of them with elderly people---but not a football sideline.
Have you seen one of these pictures?
I wouldn't be surprised to see someone photoshop this:
It is just a trophy. A real water cooler topic for a day or two, but time will pass, and most of us will forget, and we'll only care who won or lost the football game.
In the meantime, we have our be careful what you wish for New Coke moment.
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2 comments:
Wow. Couldn't they find any Amish family to pose for this abomination?
I'd be real 'fired up' to play for this trophy. It looks like something in my grandparents knick knack shelf. Hell, why don' the team play for something else of desire, say, like an old tea pot. Or maybe a cribbage board. Or a wad of whatever makes your grandparents house smell funny.
I thought Emily Carlson did a nice, even-handed piece on the new Cy-Hawk trophy the other night. Unfortunately, the last thing that pile of &#!t trophy deserves is a nice, even-handed piece of reporting.
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