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posted 03/12/2007
On Monday, March 12, the NFL Network will air a program that includes information about the NFL's first championship trophy, replicas of which reside in the Packers Hall of Fame.
The Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy is included in the NFL Films production "Back Road to the Super Bowl," which airs at 7 p.m. CT Monday on NFL Network (re-airing at 10 p.m. CT).
The program is a review of the 2006 season, with several untold stories, that also takes an occasional look back into history. One of the flashbacks is a brief segment about the Thorp trophy that includes footage from the Packers Hall of Fame, supplied by Packers.com, of the 1936 and 1939 replica trophies.
According to NFL Films research, the NFL's first trophy was named after Ed Thorp, a noted referee, rules expert, sporting goods dealer and friend to the Halas and Mara families, owners of the Bears and Giants, respectively. Thorp was a well-known college referee who officiated some of the greatest games of the early 20th century, including the "Four Horseman" game between Army and Notre Dame in 1925.
Thorp also was involved in the production of the league's footballs and named the official ball "The Duke," which was Wellington Mara's nickname. After the NFL-AFL merger, "The Duke" was removed from NFL footballs, but it reappeared in 2006 to honor Mara's passing.
"Ed Thorp is a very important but now forgotten figure in the early history of football," NFL Films senior producer Ken Rodgers said. "Every NFL fan knows who the Lombardi Trophy was named after, but few know a trophy existed before the Super Bowl, let alone who it was named after."
Thorp died in 1934 and a large, traveling trophy was made that year, passed along from champion to champion each season with each championship team's name inscribed on it. It is believed the trophy was not presented to teams immediately after the championship games but most likely changed hands at the annual owners' meetings, at which teams were officially declared world champions.
Teams had smaller replicas of the trophy made for permanent possession. The Packers have two, from their 1936 and 1939 championships, that reside in the team's Hall of Fame. The Redskins also have theirs from 1937 and 1942, while one which belonged to the Giants is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Many teams don't know where their replicas are.
The big mystery is where the large, traveling trophy is. It was last awarded to the 1969 Minnesota Vikings, who won the NFL title but lost Super Bowl IV to AFL champion Kansas City, which received the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The following year, the NFL and AFL merged, leaving the Lombardi Trophy as the only one awarded by the league beginning with the conclusion of the 1970 season.
But the Vikings apparently don't have the traveling Thorp trophy and don't know where it is. NFL Films is looking into producing a piece that tries to track down the location of the original, traveling Thorp trophy.
"We're intrigued by the possibility that a piece of football history this important cannot be located," Rodgers said. "If a few more of our leads come up empty, we might have a full-fledged NFL mystery on our hands."