Xavier University Athletics
Xavier Nation Magazine Feature: Hall of Fame Item - Xavier vs. UC Football Trophy
03.27.18 | Featured
Former football players save the Mayor’s Trophy from the grasp of obscurity
It wasn't quite an Ocean's 11 heist, but according to Ray Lynch, a member of one of Xavier's last football teams, the recovery of the Mayor's Trophy (awarded to the winner of the Xavier/University of Cincinnati football matchup) does involve altar boys, a former Musketeers adversary, and some good fortune.
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Lynch recalls former XU teammate and captain Gil Hyland calling him up one day and saying,
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"Hey Raybo, you're not going to believe what I found over at UC!"
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"He was over at UC to get [former Bearcat coach Bob] Huggins to sign some basketballs for some altar boys up in Lima," Lynch says. "I said, 'What'd you find?' And he says 'Our trophy! It's down some dark corridor [where it's] dark and dusty [with] broken pieces on it and we've got to get that out of there. That's history!'"
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Hyland—who was good enough to be considered a pro prospect by Sports Illustrated in its September 13, 1971, issue—is credited with rescuing the trophy from history's abyss. Now on display in the P. Douglas O'Keefe Athletics Hall of Fame in the Cintas Center, it's a tribute to the days when Xavier boasted a Division I football team before dropping the sport after the 1973 season.
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While the trophy has a special place in Xavier history, its value was and continues to be priceless to Hyland's family today. Hyland's daughter Missy, a 2008 Xavier graduate, says her father loved the trophy so much he had a duplicate of it for his own collection. "If you heard his stories, you would have thought he played for 55 years," she jokes.
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It goes without saying, then, why she was thankful to have the actual trophy present at her wedding this past July. With her father passing away in 2006, Missy says, the trophy was a simple way to have a piece of her father present for her big day, with many friends and family posing for pictures with both the newlywed couple and the artifact.
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Memories like those are why she says Xavier football will never completely fade away.
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"To the day he died, he was still talking to guys on the football team," she says. "When they get together, they still tell stories and it just sounds like such an awesome experience. As a Xavier grad, I thought Xavier was awesome, but to have the football experience on top of that would be the icing on the cake to share what he had."
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Lynch recalls former XU teammate and captain Gil Hyland calling him up one day and saying,
Â
"Hey Raybo, you're not going to believe what I found over at UC!"
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"He was over at UC to get [former Bearcat coach Bob] Huggins to sign some basketballs for some altar boys up in Lima," Lynch says. "I said, 'What'd you find?' And he says 'Our trophy! It's down some dark corridor [where it's] dark and dusty [with] broken pieces on it and we've got to get that out of there. That's history!'"
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Hyland—who was good enough to be considered a pro prospect by Sports Illustrated in its September 13, 1971, issue—is credited with rescuing the trophy from history's abyss. Now on display in the P. Douglas O'Keefe Athletics Hall of Fame in the Cintas Center, it's a tribute to the days when Xavier boasted a Division I football team before dropping the sport after the 1973 season.
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While the trophy has a special place in Xavier history, its value was and continues to be priceless to Hyland's family today. Hyland's daughter Missy, a 2008 Xavier graduate, says her father loved the trophy so much he had a duplicate of it for his own collection. "If you heard his stories, you would have thought he played for 55 years," she jokes.
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It goes without saying, then, why she was thankful to have the actual trophy present at her wedding this past July. With her father passing away in 2006, Missy says, the trophy was a simple way to have a piece of her father present for her big day, with many friends and family posing for pictures with both the newlywed couple and the artifact.
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Memories like those are why she says Xavier football will never completely fade away.
Â
"To the day he died, he was still talking to guys on the football team," she says. "When they get together, they still tell stories and it just sounds like such an awesome experience. As a Xavier grad, I thought Xavier was awesome, but to have the football experience on top of that would be the icing on the cake to share what he had."
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