This story appeared in the 2025 College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the 90th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic Official Game Program

Willie Fritz didn't think twice when hoisting the trophy after Tulane beat Southern California after a miraculous win in the 87th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic. The sense of pride and accomplishment the Green Wave felt in winning just the seventh bowl in school history washed over everyone.
 
A short time later, when the excitement dissipated, Fritz was struck by another thought.
 
"The Cotton Bowl trophy was deceivingly heavy, but I really noticed it after the adrenaline of the game had worn off," said Fritz, now the head coach at Houston. "The guys are much stronger than I am, so they had no problem lifting it."
 
It's a striking trophy, one designed not just to catch the eye but to symbolize the move to AT&T Stadium and the event's sparkling future. It's a far cry from the initial trophy from nearly 90 years ago, an artifact officials speculate may have been purchased from the nearest sporting goods store. Now, a company that makes one of the most iconic trophies in the world, one known immediately by its silhouette, counts the Cotton Bowl Classic among its clients.
 
More on that in a bit.
 
As stunning as the trophy is visually, with a shimmer only aircraft aluminum can capture, it's not the first quality mentioned by those who have held the trophy. It's the weight. Care to take a guess?
 
A shade over 60 pounds.
 
"For the football players, it's not an issue,'' said Marty MacInnis, Cotton Bowl Athletic Association Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer. "Same for the coaches.
 
"But you notice it.''
 
The latest incarnation of the trophy is tied to the organization's move to AT&T Stadium. After spending parts of eight decades at Cotton Bowl Stadium in Fair Park near downtown Dallas, the game moved to Arlington beginning with the 74th Classic played on Jan. 2, 2010. A state-of-the-art stadium, one with a retractable roof to eliminate the more unsavory elements of January weather, was required to become part of the Bowl Championship Series.
 
The trip down Interstate 30 brought with it the ideal time to reimagine the trophy. When AT&T Stadium opened in May 2009, it was regarded as an architectural marvel, one of the first examples in the new wave of stadium design. The Cotton Bowl Athletic Association wanted to capture that while adding its own unique twist.
 
Some sporting events are determined to keep their trophy the same, believing tradition gives the award more weight and a sense of timelessness. Others look to change on occasion to capture the spirit of the times. There's no right or wrong approach. But it's clear where the Cotton Bowl Classic falls on this spectrum.
 
"We've always prided ourselves on being innovative,'' said Michael Konradi, CBAA Chief Marketing Officer.
 
Cotton Bowl Classic officials engaged in a series of brainstorming sessions with R.S. Owens, an awards design and manufacturing company based in Chicago, ahead of the move to AT&T Stadium. Discussions moved quickly. The list was narrowed to six or seven designs and Classic officials were invited to Chicago for the pitch.
 
After the meeting, everyone went to the plant. The trophy wasn't assembled, but all of the pieces were laid out. The replica of AT&T Stadium would be the base. Two spirals would rise from the base and cross, holding the football in place. All chrome.
 
As soon as MacInnis and others saw the elements laid out, they knew.
 
"We were trying to get into the College Football Playoff,'' MacInnis said. "We wanted to project that we are innovative, show that we're ready for the future and not stuck in the past. We have a long tradition, and that's something you're not going to ignore, but we also need to move forward.
 
"The trophy was about what we wanted to be and where we were going.''
 
The trophy is the centerpiece of the CBAA's office at AT&T Stadium and is included on every tour of the stadium. Konradi said fans gravitate toward the trophy and pose with it for pictures. He gets a kick every year of watching how players and coaches gaze at the trophy when many of them see it for the first time.
 
It never fails.
 
"This was a unique way of presenting the trophy to include the stadium as an homage to a new place but also incorporate where we're going,'' MacInnis said. "It was a great look and a great way to start off the partnership.''
 
The first trophy wasn't nearly as ornate. The thrust was getting the game off the ground. Oil executive J. Curtis Sanford had traveled to the 1936 Rose Bowl Game for the game between SMU and Stanford. He got caught up in the New Year's Day pageantry and returned home, vowing to get a bowl game up in Dallas.
 
Sanford's friends reportedly laughed at his folly. But he financed the first four games out of pocket. While he lost $6,000 that first year, he turned a profit starting in year two.
 
TCU and legendary quarterback Sammy Baugh faced Marquette on the grounds of the State Fair of Texas on New Year's Day 1937. The Horned Frogs won and were presented with a trophy that was adorned with football players and an American eagle.
 
"It almost looks like a glorified, adult league softball trophy,'' Konradi said.
 
The trophy changed several times over the next few seasons until the game became affiliated with the Southwest Conference. It then became the Arthur A. Everts trophy, named after the Dallas jeweler who manufactured it. There was a special trophy made for the 50th Cotton Bowl Classic between Texas A&M and Auburn in a game that featured Bo Jackson. Baugh, the Most Valuable Player from that first Classic, was the figure at the top.
 
The design changed again in 1990, incorporating green along with a crystal cotton boll logo. It was renamed the Field Scovell Trophy in 1993, who served as Chair of the Cotton Bowl Classic selection committee for nearly 30 years. Those trophies were done by Midwest Trophy Manufacturing, a company out of Oklahoma City that now does the MVP award.
 
The trophies from the first two games, assumed lost, have been found recently and are being refurbished. They will be displayed at the CBAA office to show how the trophy has evolved.
 
The original trophy from the 1937 game was in a storage closet at TCU when Marianne Kemme, a longtime member of the Classic's media operations team, stumbled across it while looking for something else. It was in decent shape but needed some scratches smoothed over and a little woodwork. Ironically, right around the same time, Rice came across the 1938 trophy it won from beating Colorado and found it in parts. The CBAA offered to put it back together.
 
Recent versions have received better treatment. The trophy travels in a large green metal case with a cotton boll logo on the exterior. The custodians use white gloves to remove it and put it back in the case. Konradi remembers the top of the football was dented during transit a few years ago.
 
Charlie Fiss has held many roles in his 40 years with the organization, the latest being CBAA Historian prior to his retirement earlier this year. The 2025 Cotton Bowl Classic Hall of Fame inductee recalls hearing that the trophy for the 50th Classic was left on the parade route when the troopers charged with watching it forgot to take it with them. It was quickly found.
 
"I'm sure a few other things have happened along the way, but nothing drastic,'' Fiss said.
 
There was a moment in last season's 89th Classic where the trophy, after being passed among the winning Ohio State contingent, wound up in the hands of a player on his way to the locker room. The trophy had to be chased down and told that the customized version with the date and score would be sent to the university by the end of January.
 
And the company that makes the trophy? R.S. Owens, the company that describes itself as the world's largest manufacturer of premier awards, also does trophies for the Sugar Bowl and the Grand Prix Cup. It's done work for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Oh yeah, and one other notable entry among their countless contracts.
 
The Oscars.
 
"I did not know the Cotton Bowl trophy was made by the same company that makes the Oscars,'' Fritz said. "That's pretty neat. Both the Cotton Bowl and the Oscars are fantastic events and both trophies are iconic.''
 
True. But substitute the Cotton Bowl Classic Trophy for an Emmy during the Academy Awards in March and see how high Emma Stone or whoever else wins best actress can hoist that 60-pound award.
 
"It's become iconic in a short period of time,'' Konradi said of the trophy. "In the industry, we're proud of what we've created.
 
"People do gravitate to it.''
 
Lifting it is another matter.