Chiefs will be playing for the ‘ugliest trophy in all of sports’ in the preseason
Back in the days when the Rams were located in St. Louis, the Chiefs frequently played for a trophy.
The Chiefs and Rams would meet often in the preseason and the winner received the Governor’s Cup. When the Rams moved to California in 2016, the trophy stayed with the Chiefs, who won the final meeting between the franchises in 2015.
In August, the Chiefs once again will play a preseason game with a trophy on the line: the Preston Road Trophy.
Chiefs chairman of CEO Clark Hunt joined his brother Dan Hunt, the president of FC Dallas, for a Facebook chat with 105.3 The Fan, and talked about the hardware.
One question was about the Hunt family’s relationship with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Clark Hunt said his dad, Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, and Jones have a long history. Apparently Lamar Hunt, who died in 2006, made a trophy in the late 1990s to be awarded when their franchises played.
It’s called the Preston Road Trophy.
“The favorite thing we do with the Jones family is whenever the Chiefs and Cowboys play each other we’re playing for the all-important Preston Road Trophy,” Clark Hunt said. “This was a trophy that our dad came up with because they lived across the street from each other on Preston Road. And he thought it would be fun to have a trophy, and it’s the ugliest trophy in all of sports. And least expensive.
“The two of them had more fun with that while our dad was alive. And we’ve kept that tradition up. Unfortunately here a couple years ago we had to hand that trophy back, but if you’ve seen the NFL schedule, we’ve got them on the schedule for a preseason game this year. And the trophy is always up for grabs. It doesn’t have to be regular season or Super Bowl. The preseason’s good enough and we’re going to get it back.”
Here is a look at the trophy, which has an engraving with the outcome of past games, some strange logos and a nameplate of Preston Road:
Sure it’s not the Lombardi Trophy, and honestly, nothing will match that hardware, but the Cowboys are in possession of the Preston Road Trophy after they beat the Chiefs 28-17 in 2017.
Jones can look at it all he wants. But he told the Associated Press in 2013 about the time he was needled by Lamar Hunt when the Chiefs had the trophy.
“I was visiting with him and I said, ‘You know, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it. I wonder if I could come by and get it and kind of show it to some folks that I’m going to have over at my house,” Jones recalled.
“And he said, ‘You know, I’d be a little uneasy with that.’ He said, ‘I’ll set it up in the window. ... You can drive by and look at it.’”
Great stuff.
Dan Hunt talked about another trophy during the Facebook Live interview: the Lamar Hunt Trophy. Because that trophy, which goes the AFC champion, was named after Lamar Hunt in 1985, the Chiefs had never won it.
“I think maybe the most mind-blowing part of all it was when we were standing on the stage at Arrowhead (Stadium), receiving the Lamar Hunt Trophy,” Dan Hunt said. “We had been on the sidelines many, many years and that stadium and those fans are unbelievable. But actually standing on the stage ... and looking up into the sea of red, it was almost like you were being swallowed by the fanbase and how loud and how passionate they were. It was one of the most unbelievable sights I’ve been a part of in sports.”
You can watch Clark and Dan Hunt in the chat here.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 1:00 PM.
