Where is the Broken Chair?

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Sports_Realist said:
I get the concern on Nebraska's part over the Bo Pelini/Faux Pelini thing, but the utter lack of a sense of humor and the lack of a sense of fun on the part of the two athletic departments is hugely disappointing if not unsurprising. I knew something was up ahead of the game when Goldy didn't Tweet a thing about the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy, almost certainly due to the athletic department putting a gag order on him. Fan/social media generated or not, can anyone say Gopher fans care less about it than the contrived and deathly dull Governors Victory Bell or that Huskers fans give a bigger damn about the thing they play for against Wisconsin?
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Screw it! Someone make another damn trophy and the fans can exchange it! To hell with the athletic department rubes. Long live the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 

i would like to see this stay in the AD but if not then move it to the Band's they will be able to keep the trophy going and wont be afraid to bring it out during the game so that the fans can see it
 

Okay, first time post here, long-time lurker. Seems like there has been a sighting of the $5 Bits of Broken Chair and it seems like it could be coming back! (Hoping the link embeds properly)

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My two cents: You can keep breaking or destroying the trophy, but it will never go away.

The fans will keep rebuilding it. It is the people's trophy!
 


killergopher said:
Okay, first time post here, long-time lurker. Seems like there has been a sighting of the $5 Bits of Broken Chair and it seems like it could be coming back! (Hoping the link embeds properly)

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Team Jack and the Masonic Children's hospital are involved . . . interesting . . .
 

Taji34 said:
Team Jack and the Masonic Children's hospital are involved . . . interesting . . .
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I know the Masonic Children's Hospital has been very close to the hearts of PJ and Heather Fleck.

We just need to get the schools and athletic departments on board with this trophy going forward.
 

Taji34 said:
Team Jack and the Masonic Children's hospital are involved . . . interesting . . .
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Might be where it is is kept? Involvement with trophy presentation?

Seemed like both athletic departments were not interested in having the trophy go on, this is probably what got it over the hump...
 

killergopher said:
Might be where it is is kept? Involvement with trophy presentation?

Seemed like both athletic departments were not interested in having the trophy go on, this is probably what got it over the hump...
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Maybe winning school gets a donation to their respective organization from the loser? So Nebraska donates to The Masonic Children's Hospital if we win, we donate to Team Jack if they win? Maybe the coaches decided to donate? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
 



At this point, the only connection to those organizations is that we will be raising funds for them. Proceeds raised split 50/50 between the two beneficiaries. Could be different organizations next year, could be a different relationship, building the plane as we fly it a bit here.
 

ivesetsail said:
At this point, the only connection to those organizations is that we will be raising funds for them. Proceeds raised split 50/50 between the two beneficiaries. Could be different organizations next year, could be a different relationship, building the plane as we fly it a bit here.
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Nice! Is it officially recognized by the Athletic Departments?
 

I know this might not be a popular opinion here, especially when dealing with sick children, but I'm wary of any corporate involvement of college football trophies. You don't want some contrived trophy where a man is on his knees passing his son an ear of corn.
 




DarrenTheGreek said:
I'm wary of any corporate involvement of college football trophies.
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We're trying to be sensitive to this, as we don't want this to come off as contrived either. This is organized by people who care about the trophy and want to use it to bring some good to others. The benefiting organizations could change every year, we're really not sure what the life of this will be moving forward. But for this year at least, we're raising funds for these groups - they aren't in return supporting the trophy in any way. Nobody connected to this venture is going to make a dime off of it. Just a bunch of college football nerds trying to have some fun and make a difference.
 


Yes! They were able to present a check for $3,650 as a result of the fundraising that happened this year. Awesome stuff!!

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Has there been any official word if Scott Frost has embraced this inspiring trophy? Husker fans, can you comment?
 

Sorry, but I think it's disrespectful to REAL trophies, like Floyd and the Axe, and disrespectful to the rich football tradition in the Big Ten.

I respect Nebraska's prowess as a college football program, and what they did in the 90's and early 2000's. But all that history was in the Big 8/Big XII. Not in the Big Ten. I absolutely do not respect Nebraska as a Big Ten football program, yet. They've done almost nothing for the Big Ten in the one sport that they were brought in for to shine. And they're the lowest academic school in the Big Ten by far.


So if this "trophy" was thrown away, I say good riddance.


And yes, let me end my post with "Bah, Humbug!!"
 

Gophers_4life said:
Sorry, but I think it's disrespectful to REAL trophies, like Floyd and the Axe, and disrespectful to the rich football tradition in the Big Ten.

I respect Nebraska's prowess as a college football program, and what they did in the 90's and early 2000's. But all that history was in the Big 8/Big XII. Not in the Big Ten. I absolutely do not respect Nebraska as a Big Ten football program, yet. They've done almost nothing for the Big Ten in the one sport that they were brought in for to shine. And they're the lowest academic school in the Big Ten by far.


So if this "trophy" was thrown away, I say good riddance.


And yes, let me end my post with "Bah, Humbug!!"
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Totally disagree. The Broken Chair is a trophy from the fans. Yep, of course the Axe and the Jug and Floyd are real trophies too, and add the Chair to that list. I'd like to see the Chair used every time we play Duhbraska -- football, basketball, volleyball, and on down the line -- every varsity sport.
 

I think the broken chair is probably best how it is as a fan trophy.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Sorry, but I think it's disrespectful to REAL trophies, like Floyd and the Axe, and disrespectful to the rich football tradition in the Big Ten.

I respect Nebraska's prowess as a college football program, and what they did in the 90's and early 2000's. But all that history was in the Big 8/Big XII. Not in the Big Ten. I absolutely do not respect Nebraska as a Big Ten football program, yet. They've done almost nothing for the Big Ten in the one sport that they were brought in for to shine. And they're the lowest academic school in the Big Ten by far.


So if this "trophy" was thrown away, I say good riddance.


And yes, let me end my post with "Bah, Humbug!!"
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I couldn't possibly disagree more. The Broken Chair is a trophy that emerged in an organic way. It's a throwback, rather than the manufactured modern trophies smeared all over with corporate stink.

Long live the Broken Chair!
 

I respect both your opinions! I really do!


BY THE WAY, you have very, very good point about "from the fans"/organic, versus corporate manufactured trophies. Absolutely with you there. But I'm mainly referring to REAL trophies. Yes, Floyd, Axe, Jug. And no, not the Bell, don't care about that one that the Big Ten made up when they added Penn St. I'd get rid of the Bell too!
 
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Gophers_4life said:
Sorry, but I think it's disrespectful to REAL trophies, like Floyd and the Axe, and disrespectful to the rich football tradition in the Big Ten.

I respect Nebraska's prowess as a college football program, and what they did in the 90's and early 2000's. But all that history was in the Big 8/Big XII. Not in the Big Ten. I absolutely do not respect Nebraska as a Big Ten football program, yet. They've done almost nothing for the Big Ten in the one sport that they were brought in for to shine. And they're the lowest academic school in the Big Ten by far.


So if this "trophy" was thrown away, I say good riddance.


And yes, let me end my post with "Bah, Humbug!!"
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A jug, a pig and an axe are no more REAL trophies than a chair.
When those trophies first started I would guess many thought the same thing about them as you do. Look at them now.
Time is what will make the chair trophy just as prestigious as the others.
 

It is the people's trophy! Can't get more organic than that. It is too bad that they most likely don't have the mug of Bo Pellini's with his cat anymore.

What the Husker did in the Big 8/Big 12 is the past. Minnesota and Nebraska have a history that go back to 1900. Minnesota leads the series 32-24-2. But, they never had a rivalry trophy before because they did not play against each other in recent history as much as Iowa, Wisconsin, or Michigan.
 

Look at how our other trophies were made. Michigan left behind their water jug so we make a tradition of playing for it. Wisconsin stole our old trophy so we made a new one. The governors of Minnesota and Iowa bet pigs on a game. I'm sure those all seemed silly at the time.

There's a good enough background for a rivalry with Nebraska. The all-time series is fairly close, recent games have been fairly evenly split, the teams first played a long time ago, the teams are geographically close, and the teams are similar in both being former powerhouses who are currently struggling. The trophy has a good enough background too as it was partially started by Goldy and at least some of the players like it and want to keep it going.

If we want to talk about being disrespectful to real trophies, how about the victory bell? We hadn't played Penn State a single time when it was created. The official story was that we created it because we were their first Big 10 game (which is a bad story anyway) but it was really only created to sell merchandise and improve TV ratings when the teams played. And, even though they've had some accomplishments since joining, Penn State isn't what I'd consider a real Big 10 school either. They've only been here for about a third of the time it's been the Big 10 and about a fifth of the total history of the conference. Calling that a rivalry and having a trophy for it is insulting towards the real rivalries and next time we win, we should throw it in the river and forget about it.

At least Nebraska fits. I'd say they're our 5th biggest rival overall, 4th if you only count football, so if we have 4 trophies, having one with Nebraska would be fitting. But for as long as the victory bell exists, "rivalries" and rivalry trophies are just meaningless marketing gimmicks unless there is a legitimate history of bad blood between the schools.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I absolutely do not respect Nebraska as a Big Ten football program, yet. They've done almost nothing for the Big Ten in the one sport that they were brought in for to shine.
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Well, they do provide a conference game we have a chance of winning. Gotta like that. :D

JTG
 

Victory Bell, it was broken in pieces the last time they had it LOL! What did they do? Go to a cheap trophy catalog? It's meh. I don't think anybody cares so much about The Bell.

Floyd is my favorite.
 

I love the pig, love the jug...those are awesome trophies. The Axe is important, but not the greatest trophy from an aesthetic standpoint. The chair is cool and fun, regardless of its cheapness. Maybe partly because it's cheap! The "victory bell" is stupid. The only thing I have against PSU is that stupid trophy, otherwise I can't gin up any hate.
 

Conspiracy theory: the athletic departments at both Nebraska and Minnesota are actually cool with the trophy, but agreed the best way to organically build up interest was to appear apathetic or even hostile to the idea for several years thus giving it both a renegade cool vibe and at the same time avoid irritating any potential corporate sponsors.
 

I should've never made my comment in this thread. It's my fault for not realizing this was a 2016 thread, which had a succinct ending of the trophy being purchased and placed in the Children's Hospital. That ended it, back in Dec 2017 it looks like.

Then just today SparLimb tried to start it up again by wondering if Frost knows anything about it.

I bet he doesn't, and I bet he doesn't want to know anything about it. It's over. It's in the Children's Hospital, which is a great place for it, after a wonderful cause to raise money. Let it be, move on.
 

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