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Scottsdale jeweler hands off Super Bowl trophy
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Former NFL players Phillipe Sparks and Seth Joyner, Tiffany & Co VP of Business Sales Tom O'Rourke, former NFL player Michael Haynes, Tiffany & Co. director for Arizona Meredith Moss and NFL player Kwamie Lassiter pose for a group photo.
Thomas Boggan, Tribune
The first official hand off of Super Bowl XLII happened Saturday inside a posh jewelry store in Scottsdale instead of a football field in Glendale.
See a slideshow of the NFL Experience
A white-gloved Tom O’Rourke, Tiffany vice president, presented the Vince Lombardi Trophy to NFL vice president Michael Haynes.
Once in NFL hands, the trophy was rushed to the NFL Experience, the football-themed park near University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. It will stay on display there until game day.
Either the New York Giants or the New England Patriots get to take the trophy home after the big gridiron clash that begins at 4 p.m. Feb. 3 at the stadium.
More than 100 NFL superstars, bigwigs and elite customers of the upscale jeweler got an invite to have breakfast at Tiffany’s and watch the hand off.
Among them was Phillippi Sparks, former cornerback for the Giants and possibly even more widely recognized as the father of American Idol Jordin Sparks, who will perform the National Anthem at the main event.
Haynes asked Sparks, who never got to perform his feats in a Super Bowl, how he felt about his daughter doing so.
“You want your kids to out-do you, but I didn’t know it would be (at a Super Bowl),” Sparks said. “That’s a little hard to swallow.”
Tiffany has made the all-silver Super Bowl trophy since the first big game in 1967.
But at the traditional hand off event, Tiffany’s super-important customers took the opportunity to check out the stuff they could take home.
Riva Yares of Scottsdale said she was eyeing a $200,000 diamond but first had to spot somebody to buy it for her.
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