Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy

The Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy was the trophy awarded to the champions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1934 through 1967. The trophy was named after Ed Thorp, a noted referee, rules expert, sporting goods dealer, and friend to many of the early NFL owners. Thorp died in June 1934,^[1][2] and a large, traveling trophy was made later that year.^[3] It was to be passed along from champion to champion each season with each championship team's name inscribed on it.

Unlike the modern day Lombardi trophies, the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy did not become the possession of the winning team, but instead spent a year with the winning team before being passed on to the next year’s champion, much like the Grey Cup in the Canadian Football League or the Stanley Cup in the National Hockey League.^[4] For a brief period in the 1930s, teams winning the league championship were awarded a smaller replica of the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy, which they were allowed to keep, in addition to the year spent with the larger traveling trophy.^[5]

In 2015, the trophy was found to be in the possession of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, along with two other copies of it. How the trophy came to be in the possession of the Hall of Fame, rather than the team itself, was eventually solved in June, 2018, by Packers historian Cliff Christl.^[6]

Some of the trophies, such as the two replicas the Green Bay Packers won in 1936 and 1939, have Thorp misspelled as Thorpe, showing that the name Ed Thorp was not a household name at the time.^[6]