FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 6, 2003


FHSAA's state championship trophy gets a big-time makeover

GAINESVILLE – The most coveted of prizes in high school sports is the state championship trophy. In conjunction with its name change and as part of its ongoing makeover, the Florida High School Athletic Association on Monday unveiled publicly a newly redesigned state championship trophy that will will be presented to the 89 teams that win state titles during the 2003-04 school year.

The dark mahogany and green marble - yes, its real marble - trophy stands 18 1/2 inches tall, is 13 1/2 inches wide and weighs seven pounds. The FHSAA shield medallion and inscriptions, including the appropriate FHSAA sport icon, will be gold on championship trophies and silver on runner-up trophies. The runner-up trophy, otherwise, will be the same size. The new trophy replaces the clear acrylic trophy that was difficult to see from a distance and impossible to photograph.

"We felt like our futuristic trophy had outlived its usefulness," said Commissioner Robert W. Hughes. "Now that we're living in the future, we wanted to go back to something more traditional. This new trophy is substantive and elegant. Its appearance alone says 'champion.' It will be the Association's honor to present it to those deserving young men and women who put forth the courage and commitment to claim it as their own."

A smaller version of the state championship trophy, less the marble, will be available for presentation to champions and runners-up on the district and region levels. One significant to the inscription on these trophies will be the elimination of a specific district and region number.

"With the accelerated and continued growth of our association, we're forced to reassign schools to districts every two years," Hughes said. "A school may be in District 5 for two years, then District 6 for two years, then District 4 for two years. The bottom line is that the district and region numbers have no relevance outside of the administration of the tournament or meet series. Therefore, the trophies will say 'district champion' or 'region champion.' They won't say 'district 2 champion' and so on. It's a change that the athletic directors we spoke to said made sense."

The Trophy Shop owner Clyde Pfeiffer and FHSAA communications director Jack Watford collaborated on the trophy designs for more than 18 months.

The first presentations of the new state championship trophy will be Thursday, Oct. 30, to the Class 2A state girls and boys swimming & diving champions at the 2003 FHSAA Swimming & Diving Finals in Sebastian.

The Florida High School Athletic Association is the governing body for interscholastic athletics in Florida. It has a membership of more than 680 middle and senior high schools.


Contact:
Jack Watford
Director of Communications, FHSAA
(352) 372-9551 ext. 170
jwatford@fhsaa.org