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Nebraska's Only True Rivalry Trophy (Screw You Hy-Vee)

Sometime in the 2030s... 

"Dad, tell me again about the Hy-Vee Heroes Trophy!"


"Well son. Once upon a time Hy-Vee's marketing team decided they wanted to..."


BOORRRRRRRINNNNG. 

Way to take all the fun out of a rivalry trophy. Trophies that only exist for the sole purpose of being fun.

The $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy is the only real rivalry trophy Nebraska is playing for this season as far as I'm concerned. That's not a declaration of who Nebraska's rivals are, but a critique of the actual trophies themselves. The $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy is the only one that's actually fun. The only one that has a story behind it worth telling. Not only does it have a great origin story, the bizarre nature of it demands its telling every time someone new hears about it.

What a freaking crazy concept for a rivalry trophy, right?


And don't get me wrong. I appreciate the gesture of the Heroes Trophy to honor heroes from both Iowa and Nebraska, but at the end of the day it only exists because a corporation wanted it to.

The $5 Bits of Broken Chair is living proof we don't need corporate sponsored Bleh to come together and do great things. The annual "Chair-ity" fundraiser attached to the chair raises money for two organizations associated with each university (Team Jack and the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital)Take notes Hy-Vee. We even made a fun pun to go along with our charitable efforts. 

"We wanted to go with something that would benefit others instead of just slapping company names on it,” Jordan Rapp, one of the Redditors responsible for creating the trophy, said. “So we felt that if we could get donations for these great causes, that would bring a little attention to it, and add a little validity to it.”

For all these reasons the trophy is glorious. This weekend's Minnesota game has enough intrigue on its own, but even in the down years of this series the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy has taken what was before just another Big Ten West conference game and made it so much more fun. And that's what a rivalry trophy is supposed to do. 

Frankly, the Heroes Trophy only crosses my mind once every two years. And that's when I'm in Memorial Stadium at halftime during the heroes presentation. I flat out forgot the Freedom Trophy between Wisconsin and Nebraska even existed.

Writing this post is the most time I've ever spent thinking about either of them since their inceptions. And that's because those trophies are just marketing tools. The fans couldn't care less and they aren't fun. They have no real reason to exist. 

Just imagine for a moment: 
  • The Menards Axe (Minnesota vs. Wisconsin)
  • The Renasant Bank Golden Egg (Ole Miss vs. Mississippi St.)
  • The Kroger Illibuck (Illinois vs. Ohio State) 
  • The Dish TV Golden Boot (Wyoming vs. Colorado St)
  • The Steak and Shake Old Oaken Bucket (Indiana vs. Purdue)
  • The Buffalo Wild Wings Brown Jug (Minnesota vs. Michigan)
  • The Casey's General Store Floyd of Rosedale (Iowa vs. Minnesota)
See? I tried but none of those were even clever or funny. They just sucked. 

In fact, any company would say "What in the world is an Illibuck? We can't have that!" And then they would have named it something boring. 

Because that's what they do. 

They don't understand fun. They don't understand a non sequitur. Anything that could potentially cause any sort of confusion for their target audience is bad.  

The $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy is a crude middle finger to the modern ways of the world, where absolutely everything new under the sun demands a soul-sucking corporate sponsorship. It's proof we're still allowed to have fun with a game. Glorious, spontaneous, nonsensical fun. 

In the words of Jordan Rapp:

"We feel that a lot of those trophies are just forced a little bit, so it’s nice to have that trophy for Nebraska finally that’s organic and can be exchanged with a little fun.”

Amen. 

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