Whacked with the Ugly Stick

Since we have plenty of time ahead of us to indulge our more obscure interests, and since when the PBR finally starts up again we will be in a dead run for the finals in Las Vegas and probably won't have two seconds to ourselves for the duration, I wanted to take up a matter that has long puzzled me, to wit: Why are the trophies handed out at the highest levels of professional sports so damned ugly?

For starters, the National Hockey League has the Stanley Cup: http://www.flickr.com/photos/puftdankfotos/266943520/

You can tell that the photographer tried his best to light the trophy nicely, what with the heavenly light in the upper left hand corner and all, but tell me truthfully—don’t you think it looks like an upside (albeit silver-plated) travel cup, the kind that collapses back on itself? Why did anybody think that was a good idea?

Then we have the Vince Lombardi Trophy, courtesy of the National Football League, and named for he who famously said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,” though there is some dispute about who first coined that phrase. Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisweed/96201373/

It looks like some kind of doodle the CEO did on a napkin and nobody had the guts to tell him it sucked. I think they should give that to the LOSERS of the Superbowl and give the winners gift certificates to Lone Star Steakhouse. They’d be better off, believe me.

Then we come to the trophy handed out to the winners of the National Basketball Association season: http://sports.gearlive.com/blogimages/nba_trophy.jpg

I really cannot figure out what in hell is going on here. Is that supposed to be a basketball about to fall through the basket? Why is the ball so damned big? What angle would you have to see the action from for it to look like that? Toss it in a wastebasket, I say.

I am not a NASCAR fan for a whole bunch of reasons, and this trophy, awarded to the winner of the Dayton 500, only enforces my attitude: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosaliedefini/2285880959/

That is truly lame—it looks like it was designed by a bunch of rednecks who’d been drinking beer at the shooting range all afternoon. Is it supposed evoke one of those turntables car dealers used to have in their showrooms, where a car would revolve endless while admiring would-be buyers looked on? And what’s with those tacky little name plates? At least they ENGRAVE the winning team’s name on the Stanley Cup.

Aside from the ones that I just can’t make any sense out of, my main objection to all these monstrosities is that the proportions are all screwed up. The best of the bunch is probably the America’s Cup, which harkens back to the classic days of trophy design, though even it is too tall for its own good:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21951463@N02/2122292532/

It may look like a syrup pitcher (with a great big reservoir below it), but at least it’s not totally top heavy or just indecipherable. In other words, you can tell it’s a trophy, not something somebody found in a junk yard, polished up with an SOS pad, and dragged down to the arena at the last minute.

Compared to these, the PBR’s trophy doesn’t look completely horrible, but it’s still no orchid. Here it is in the company of the current title holder, your very own Justin McBride, Miss Shannon. If you can’t bear to look at his face, just cover it up with your hand:
http://www.lvrj.com/sports/11017206.html

My main objections to this thing are that it looks like a soup pot, and those bulls on the handles are beyond ridiculous. At least, with the pseudo-belt buckle on the front, they’ve got that Western silversmith thing going on, because if it didn’t have that, it would look like a big punch bowl for serving the ginger ale and sherbet (“sherbert,” where I come from) drink they always served at weddings when I was a kid, because of course we were all too pure to drink champagne, or maybe for holding your mamma’s fruit salad that she makes every Thanksgiving under the delusion that people like it, when in fact they won’t touch it with a barge pole. If she's anything like my mamma, she makes enough to feed Coxey's army and you'll be bumping into it in the refrigerator for weeks, until somebody finally surreptitiously throws it out.

Or maybe it looks like (truth be told) a chamber pot, which is ironic in the extreme considering that the dude who wins walks away with $1 million. At that moment, he couldn’t be accused of not having a pot to, er, you know, in, or a window to throw it out of, though I’m not at all convinced that these guys are particularly prudent with their winnings and he could be broke before he turns his back on Vegas. (Ruby would phrase it, “didn’t have a pot nor a window,” so as to get the meaning across without sullying her reputation for clean speech.)

Of course, the biggest problem we’ve got with all these butt-ugly objects is, we’re stuck with them. It’s like nobody can admit the original design was a mistake. No, it's worse than that, it’s like nobody even TALKS about it. Can it be possible that they have no idea? I'd prefer to think that, but in my heart, I just can't believe it.

So please, folks, reconsider. Even big billion-dollar corporations retool their images once in a while. Given the relative ugliness of these trophies, I am the first to admit that there are a bunch of professional sports organizations that should do that before the PBR does, but it wouldn’t hurt the bull riders to be ahead of the curve for once.