A golden Super Bowl anniversary deserves a grass-roots commemoration equal to the occasion.
So the NFL High School Honor Roll is giving golden footballs to every high school attended by a Super Bowl champion. Peyton and Eli Manning surprised an early morning football practice at Isidore Newman High School in New Orleans by dropping in as part of their Honour Roll presentation. The presentations began at the start of the season in September and will take place throughout the year to the start of the 2016 season. Of the more than 2,000 high schools, and more than 3,000 players and coaches being recognized, 15 are from Canada.
They include Spectrum, from which 1994 Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl champion kicker Ed Murray graduated, and Vic High, from which offensive lineman and 1992 Washington Redskins Super Bowl champion Mo Elewonibi graduated.
That’s not bad, considering Maine gets only one and New Hampshire and Vermont none at all. And that the high schools of legends such as Fran Tarkenton, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino won’t get any, either, because they didn’t win Super Bowls.
California leads the pack with 432, followed by Texas with 326, Florida at 218, Ohio 155 and Pennsylvania 148. Schools in nine countries or territories — from American Samoa to Cyprus to Germany — are represented. Canada’s 15 schools are the most for any nation outside the U.S.
Spectrum is planning a ceremony in early April, at which time Murray will award the golden ball to the trophy case of his old school, which in an earlier incarnation was known as Mount View.
Vic High is working through its plans for Elewonibi.
Ironically, this being the Island where the other football rules, there were no Spectrum/Mount View or Vic High football teams at the time and both Murray and Elewonibi were better known as soccer and rugby stars at their schools.
Spectrum now has football and hopes the Super Bowl golden ball, along with Murray’s appearance this spring, boosts its program.
“We want to build on this NFL 50th Honor Roll moment and hope it inspires our players to know that a Super Bowl champion went to their school and that there are opportunities out there for them,” said George Gretes, the junior varsity coach for Spectrum.
One of only 15, Murray talked about the exclusivity of this Honour Roll.
“The numbers show this is just a select few,” he said, from his home in Detroit, where he spent the majority of his NFL career kicking for the Lions, and where he now works for a telecommunications company.
“I am very proud of my Canadian roots, being from the Island, and coming out of Spectrum. I came to Victoria from England at age 15, and gravitated to soccer and rugby, sports with which I was most familiar. That led to coming out to play football for the Saanich Hornets under Roy Vollinger … that was my introduction to football.”
Murray, who also attended Colquitz Junior HIgh School, is the 18th-leading scorer in NFL history with 1,594 points. He won his championship at Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994 with the Dallas Cowboys in his 14th NFL season. It was the only Super Bowl appearance in his 18-year NFL career, which shows just how rare a thing it is to win one of those gaudy, Cadillac-size rings.
Elewonibi was a star in goal for Vic High in soccer and was also a standout for the venerable institution in basketball and rugby. He is a graduate of the Vampires and Hornets football programs in Victoria before winning the Outland Trophy in 1989 at Brigham Young University as the top offensive lineman in U.S. college. He went on to play in the CFL and became an all-star.
Elewonibi’s No. 64 jersey is retired in Victoria junior football, the latest incarnation of which are the Westshore Rebels. He was inducted into the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame in 2009 after a 16-season NFL and CFL career.
“As a kid, you go out and play for no other reason than just for fun,” said Elewonibi on the night of his induction.
He now works in Nanaimo.
Murray was enshrined in the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.
Both Murray and Elewonibi have a personal connection to today’s 50th Super Bowl celebrations to which few others can lay claim. It is among the most exclusive of clubs in sport. They each have rings the size of door-stoppers to prove their membership in it. And soon, Spectrum and Vic High will have golden Super Bowl footballs in their trophy cases to prove it, too.
