The Vince Lombardi Trophy will be awarded to either the Los Angeles Rams or the Cincinnati Bengals after the 2022 Super Bowl on Sunday, but how did the prize gets its name?
Super Bowl LVI (56) will take place on Sunday evening at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, between the two fourth-seeded teams. Each year since the inception of the Super Bowl in the 1966-67 season, the winning team has lifted the sterling silver prize, but it wasn't always called the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Here's the story of how the trophy got its name, and the man it's named after.
Who Was Vince Lombardi?
Vince Lombardi was a successful coach who won the first two Super Bowls with the Green Bay Packers in 1967 and '68. He enjoyed great success throughout the '60s, winning multiple championships with his team and never ended a season with a losing record.
Unfortunately, Lombardi died in 1970 after a brief battle with colon cancer. Shortly before his death he enjoyed one successful season as the coach of the Washington Redskins, as they were previously known.
Lombardi was inducted into the NFL's Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and he also enjoys a position in many other halls of fame at the likes of Green Bay, Washington, Wisconsin and New Jersey.
When the Trophy Was Renamed After Vince Lombardi
The trophy was first created by Tiffany & Co. in 1966 and awarded to the Green Bay Packers after they won the first Super Bowl in 1967, though the game was actually called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.
After Lombardi's death in September 1970, the trophy was renamed in his honor, and it has been referred to as the Vince Lombardi Trophy ever since. The first official winners of the Vince Lombardi Trophy were the Baltimore Colts, who beat the Dallas Cowboys in January 1971.
New Trophies Each Year
A new Vince Lombardi Trophy is cast each year so the previous winners of the prize get to keep them in their trophy rooms forever.
The words "Vince Lombardi Trophy" are printed into each of the trophies, alongside the Roman numerals for that year's Super Bowl. Once the game is over, Tiffany & Co. engraves the name of the winners on the trophy as well as the score from the game. Tiny replicas of the Vince Lombardi Trophy are made for each of the people from the winning team.
It's a good thing that a new trophy is cast for each Super Bowl winner each year as the trophies themselves have taken a bit of a beating recently.
A few months after winning Super Bowl LIII in 2019 with the New England Patriots, Rob Gronkowski used the Vince Lombardi Trophy to hit a baseball, which left a significant dent in the structure. His former teammate, and all time most successful Super Bowl player, Tom Brady also tempted fate after last year's win with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Infamous footage went viral when Brady threw the Vince Lombardi Trophy from one boat to another, but it was luckily caught by tight end Cameron Brate.
Find out who will lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy during Super Bowl LVI on Sunday, February 13, on NBC.
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