Glacier celebrates football title with ring ceremony
<p>Glacier Wolfpack players were presented with their 2014 championship rings on Wednesday for winning the Class AA Montana High School Association football championship last November. Glacier finished the season 13-0. (Aaric Bryan/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
With a freshly pressed championship banner hanging at the front of the room, the 2014 Glacier football team gathered again to toast the best season in school history. This time, with something shiny to show off.
The team handed out championship rings Tuesday in the school’s conference room, a few days ahead of a banner dedication ceremony for their state championship during halftime of the crosstown basketball game on Friday.
The rings, paid for by players at a cost of $189, feature the Wolfpack logo encrusted in an embossed football on the face along with the team name and the words “STATE CHAMPIONS”.
One side of the ring features the player’s name and position with a depiction of the Wolfpack helmet. The other has the Wolfpack logo atop the state outline, featuring a jewel over Kalispell, and reads 2014 AA champs along with the team’s 13-0 record.
“The graphics don’t do it justice,” Glacier football coach Grady Bennett said. The team had only previously seen the computer approximation of the design. Bennett was the first of many to light up once they opened the box.
“I wasn’t sure what it was going to look like,” Bennett said. “This is so sweet.”
The team first kicked around the idea of purchasing championship rings as the team approached the title game. What started as a joking aside got serious once the team clinched its undefeated season. Enough players were interested in getting rings that they went ahead with a design.