Where's My Thorp?

On July 1, 1934, the NFL owners voted to present a trophy to it's league champion. I've always found it a bit surprising that the young professional football league hadn't awarded a trophy to it's champion since it's inaugural 1920 season. The Akron Pros were voted the league champions in 1920 and may, or may not, have received the Brunswick-Balke Collender Cup. No one has seen that trophy since. That's an interesting story for another day. I probably shouldn't have been surprised that it took the NFL so long to get a new trophy as it took the league 13 years to schedule a championship game. Anyway, in 1934, the league's owners voted to present a trophy to it's champion. They also voted to name the trophy after Ed Thorp, a referee, rules expert, and friend to several of the league's owners. Thorp had passed away a week prior to the vote. The NFL finally had a championship trophy, the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy. Like the Stanley Cup, the trophy was a traveling trophy. Each championship team kept the trophy for a year and then passed it on to the next champion. At least that was the plan.

There's been a mystery surrounding the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy. The biggest mystery was that for the longest time no one knew where it was. The Minnesota Vikings were the last team to win the NFL Championship before the full merger of the NFL and AFL. So, they were the last team to win the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy. The Vikings have never been in possession of the trophy that they won. There was a rumor that they had lost it. The franchise was supposedly cursed because of the loss of the trophy. It's impossible to lose something that you've never possessed.

Where was the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy? In 2015, the trophy, in three parts, was found to be in the possession of the Green Bay Packers. No surprise there. Partly because they won the NFL title so damn many times during the 1960s. Simple odds would put the trophy in Green Bay. But mostly because I don't trust the Packers. After all, they were kicked out of the league after playing their first season in the new league. I'd expect them to pull some shady shenanigans nearly fifty years later.

Despite the league having this splendid traveling trophy, there wasn't a strong track record of the trophy being where it was supposed to be any given year. An example of that poor track was revealed when the Packers took possession of the trophy with their 1961 championship. It hadn't been engraved since the Los Angeles Rams won it in 1951. At some point in the 1960s, the names of the teams that had won it in the 1950s were engraved. But the 1960 Philadelphia Eagles weren't. There's a mystery. Maybe someone with the Packers added the teams from the 1950s but were still steamed about losing the 1960 title to the Eagles. Who knows? There's evidence that the Chicago Bears had the trophy after winning in 1963. There's evidence that the Cleveland Browns received it from the Bears after winning in 1964. The Packers obviously received the trophy from the Browns.

The travels, or lack of travels, of the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy is a fun NFL story. There's mystery to it. There are shenanigans. The thing that bothers me about this story is the Packers thinking that it's their trophy to keep. Since it's been found and all it's part reunited, the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy has been on display in the museum of the Green Bay Packers.

In a column that he wrote on Packers.com, Packers team historian Cliff Christl reasoned it out this way.

The now 84-year old Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy was dismantled and misplaced, maybe more than once, but never lost and for more than 50 years has been where it belongs – in the possession of the franchise that won it the most times.

The Packers captured eight of their record 13 NFL championships during the life of the Ed Thorp Memorial: Three times under Curly Lambeau (1936, '39, '44) and five times under Lombardi (1961, '62, '65, '66, '67).

Seriously? The Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy was a traveling trophy that didn't travel very well. The Packers were partly to blame for that. They last had rightful claim to the trophy following their 1967 NFL title. The Baltimore Colts won the NFL title in 1968 and didn't get their trophy. Because the Packers kept it. The Vikings won the NFL title in 1969 and didn't get their trophy. Because the Packers had kept it. Not only did the Packers keep it, they hid it away in three separate pieces. They hid it away so well that no one knew where it was for nearly a half century. Nice. Selfishly, I believe that the Vikings should be displaying the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy in their museum. They were the last team to win it. They should be the last team to posses it. Realistically, I think that the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy should be displayed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It definitely shouldn't be in Green Bay. After all, the trophy has been hidden there, mostly in disrepair, for longer than it served as the league's traveling championship trophy. Not only did the Packers lose claim to the trophy when another team won the NFL title, they've treated the trophy without a hint of respect for decades. They disgrace the trophy further by greedily keeping it. 

Give up the Thorp, Green Bay! It's not yours. It hasn't been yours since 1967.