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 Fenton
Makes a Championship Trophy
Some hefty
stakes - Friends of Coal Bowl championship trophy unveiled in Huntington
August 24, 2006
By DOUGH SMOCK
Charleston Gazette,
Charleston, WV
HUNTINGTON — When Bob Marcum and Mark Snyder jokingly made a getaway with
the new trophy for the Marshall-West Virginia football series, they didn’t
drop it.
Which is a good thing, and not just because it’s part glass.
The Governor’s Trophy, unveiled Wednesday at Marshall, doesn’t look imposing
from a distance. But the glass-encased coal football anchored to a carbon
platform weighs 60 pounds and could do some damage if dropped on your feet.
That’s something for Gov. Joe Manchin to keep in mind as he presents the
trophy to the winner on Sept. 2 at Mountaineer Field.
“It’s pretty heavy,” Snyder quipped after the Marshall coach and his boss,
athletic director Marcum, put the trophy back.
Heavy also describes the imagination and labor poured into the project from
several points across the state.
The trophy was designed by Rick Mogielski, senior vice president and
creative director at Charles Ryan Associates. He was inspired by the Sears
Trophy, the Waterford crystal glass football awarded to the winner of the
Bowl Championship Series national title game.
 The
presence of coal was mandatory, considering the title sponsor is Friends of
Coal. But getting that coal inside the glass was tricky.
“I talked to several companies that said it couldn’t be done, because mixing
coal with glass: Both of them are heat sources and you could run into
problems,” Mogielski said. “So we were talking about cutting the glass
football in half, setting [the coal] in there and then adhering it together.
Finally, we decided this was the best way to go.”
The football’s glass casing and pedestal were done by
Fenton Art Glass of
Williamstown. The coal was supplied by Kingstown Mining Inc. near Scarbro,
but wasn’t ready to work with.
“I gave it to Rick and it turned out it had too much moisture in it, as it
was naturally delivered to us,” said Bill Raney, president of the West
Virginia Coal Association. “We had to take it, pulverize it at SGS Minerals
in Charleston. They pulverized it, put it in the oven and dried it out and
got it to the consistency the fellow in Ansted could work with.”
That fellow was Robert Dickenson of Mountaineer Coal Creations. He liquefied
the coal and inserted it through a tiny air hole in the glass, filling out
the football.
GrafTech in Clarksburg provided the carbon base. Casto Tile and Marble of
Charleston did the face plate and mounting, and Curry Bros. Monuments of
Alum Creek did the laser engraving, etching the governor’s seal in the base
and the “laces” in the football.
Snyder, who acknowledges “the blood pressure is going up” in the Marshall
camp, offered his stamp of approval.
“What we started out with, what we wanted was a very unique trophy,” Snyder
said. “We wanted something that would catch peoples’ eye when it was in the
trophy case, either in Huntington or in Morgantown, as it travels with the
winning team over the seven-year series.
“Being involved in some of these games [as an assistant at Ohio State] that
involve a trophy, the Axe [Paul Bunyan’s Axe, Minnesota-Wisconsin], the
Floyd of Rosedale [Iowa-Minnesota], Old Oaken Bucket [Indiana-Purdue], all
the old rivalries, it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. There’s nothing more
exhilarating than picking up the trophy after the game for the winning team.
I know our team’s excited, we’re going to Morgantown and give them our best
shot and I know our kids are ready to roll.”
To contact staff writer Doug Smock, use e-mail or call 348-5130.
[PHOTO CAPTION ABOVE]
The Friends of Coal Bowl
championship trophy goes to the winner of what will soon become the annual
West Virginia-Marshall showdown.
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