Of Football and Furniture: An Interview with the Chairperson of the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy

In the olden days, college sports were not like they are now. They were amateur, they were small, they were regional. They weren't corporate. They weren't monied. They weren't professionalized. They were, put simply, weird.

The traditions that we think of as established legend? They were kids in college doing weird things, some of which stuck and remain today. Think about the Purdue Cannon! Purdue students brought a goddamn mini-howitzer to a football game in Champaign and an Illinois student stole it. Legend ensues. Or the Little Brown Jug! Michigan visits Minnesota and they're so worried about tampered water that they bring their own supply. The history follows. These things weren't built by athletic departments or by marketing campaigns or big-name donors. They're natural, they're built by happenstance and accident and fandom and oddity. College football is rivalry; rivalry is lore.

In the modern day, it's harder to establish that sort of legend. But in 2014, a new version of the college football heyday trophy was created. It wasn't tested or marketed. It just occurred spontaneously and without instruction. Goldy Gopher's Twitter account talked some smack to Faux Pelini, a parody account of the soon-to-be-fired Nebraska coach. And the $5 Bits of Broken Chair trophy was born. And we were lucky enough to get some thoughts from Faux Pelini himself!

With the history out of the way, let's get to the interview!

OTR: For those that are uninitiated, how did the original Chair come about? And the replacement chair?

Team Chair: Back when Twitter was a place to watch and comment on games together in real time, where friendships could be made, and bots had not overtaken the landscape, the Goldy Gopher mascot account was very funny and out there mixing it up with the people. Goldy turned a hilarious exchange into a real life trophy with a trip to the thrift store and the hardware store, and brought it with him on the team bus down to Lincoln! The internet embraced it on Twitter/Reddit, and Gopher punter Peter Mortell hoisted it in victory that very weekend.

Does anyone know what happened to the original Chair? How was the Chair resurrected in 2017?

No one knows the full story of where the original went. The Nebraska Athletic Dept has turned over a few times since then, and Jerry Kill plus a couple less fun ADs are gone from Dinkytown, so I don't think we'll ever really know. I hope it is still in a closet somewhere, at the very least for eventual archiving and historical purposes. The current trophy is engraved with 2 of ♾️ behind the name plate. They can keep taking them away and we will keep building them. Fans went one year (2016) without The Chair and would not let it stand.

I don’t even really remember how the 8 of us found each other, but 3 Gophers and 5 Huskers connected somehow via Reddit and Twitter after seeing that two of those Huskers had studied photos and recreated/upgraded The Chair in a woodshop and posted the photos. The other 6 of us chased them down. It was the best recreation anyone had seen. Once we found the Chair-ity pun, inspired by PJ’s Serving and Giving culture he was bringing to Minnesota, we wanted to use the fan engagement to support what the players were doing to volunteer off the field as well.

What are the current Chair-ities that you support? 

Team Jack and Team One Four. Both are close to both teams, and student-athletes spend a lot of time volunteering with each organization. The fans supporting the things the players do as young men off the field too, to engage and improve their communities, is an important part of this trophy. Cancer sucks, and there are a million ways people can get involved and try to impact that. We chose these because Jack and Casey represent their teams and their states and the spirit of wanting to take their pain and their challenges and make things better for others. We can all learn from those two heroes. Being able to support them and be associated with these orgs is an honor and privilege.

How much has the Chair raised in recent years and in total? What’s the goal for this year? 

[Update: They cleared the 200k total threshold last night!!!]

Are the schools/athletics departments any closer to embracing the trophy?  

The party line is currently that these are not official trophies but the fan engagement is awesome and no one is anything but proud of the efforts everyone has made in the name of improving the lives of kids with pediatric cancer.

Who takes care of the Chair and arranges for the donations? How will the Chair be exchanged this year?

The winning team’s Chair-ity hosts the trophy between games. In Minnesota, there is a display case in the kids and family play area at the hospital, in the Gopher themed locker along with all the other local pro sports teams lockers full of memorabilia. In Nebraska, Team Jack has it and takes it on the road to their dozens of events all year, and there is a case at the Omaha Children's Hospital.

The admin work is done by a few of us that remain from that original 8 people from back in 2017, plus a couple of new folks that just joined this year. Team Jack is an AMAZING partner and helps us out so much. We couldn’t do this successfully without the folks at Team Jack.

It’s been a decade since the origin of the Chair. What about it do you think made it resonate with the fans? Where do you see the Chair in another ten years?

It’s FUN! It isn’t the Hyvee Freedom America US Bank Honorary Presidential Trophy of Achievement sponsored by M&Ms. This was made by a bunch of college football goofballs, and was kept alive by people who liked how organic and dumb it is. Would anyone in the world choose “$5 Bits of Broken Chair” as the name of a new trophy? No. But that is the only name this could ever have. People love it because it has a story like the old days.

We would love this to make it to the field to be exchanged by the teams again. We would love to do a giant check presentation on the field to let the fans be celebrated for their contributions. We would love a QR code/donation link on the broadcast and jumbotron to get us up to 6-digit donation totals annually. We want it to stay of the people and for the people, but having some unselfish whales get involved who don't need naming rights get involved would be great. Mainly, we just want it to be automatic. To exist without question, and without a battle for awareness every year. After this, the 10th Broken Chair game, that it is officially A Thing.

Think back and have this conversation below and tell me if this item would last for 100 years. Our story of Goldy spray-painting a child’s chair with gold spray paint, nailing it to some boards, and gluing some $5 bills to the bottom is not so ridiculous. If this can make it, and be beloved, then why not a Broken Trophy and its Chair-ity?

The Likely Origin of Legacy Trophies, Reenacted

“Hey, I think the other team left their water bottle here. Is their bus still in the lot? We could run and give it to them.” 

“No way, if they want it back they can win from us next year. If they want it, come and claim it.”

“Jeez, Oscar. It’s just a water bottle, not the dang One Ring of Power. Cool your jets.”

“You just wait and see. This will become one of the most legendary trophies exchanged in the history of college football, and a pretty decent bar in Ann Arbor will be named after it.”

“Oscar, it’s just a Little Brown Jug.”