Fantasy Football Trophy - Make for Free

Our family has a fantasy football league and back when it started i figured that we needed a cool trophy.  I saw that you can buy fantasy sports trophies online, but they were rediculous, costing hundreds of dollars.

Fantasy Football Trophy - Ideas to Make Your Own

https://youtu.be/n5_AI2Ocu_4

So i figured that i could just make one.  The cool thing about making your own fantasy trophy is that you can make it big.  Really big.

The cool thing about making the trophy is you can personalize it and make it your own.

We came up with the idea of going to a nearby Salvation Army and finding an old bowl or cup or something to go on top, then make a wood base.  So we went there and i thought i saw the bowl we could use, it was about 5" tall.  But then we noticed this really big bowl, about a foot tall.  When we took a closer look we saw that it was silver and had the inscription Red Run Invitational 1972.  It was an actual trophy cup from a golf course country club in near by Royal Oak.  I think it only cost like $5.

Old golf tournament cup.

It was then that we realized how big we needed to make the trophy.  With that big of a cup on top, the trophy was going to need to be almost 3' tall.

So i drew up a few designs and settled on a 2-tier box.  I made the boxes out of wood and nailed on a nice edge trim.

I didn't want to damage the cup while attaching it.  So i used a metal plate which fit inside the lower cup and when a bolt was tightened, it clamped down onto the trophy.

On the face of the trophy i made a plaque, which was similar to the NFL logo, which said Family Fantasy Football.

I used a piece of sheet metal, which i cut out with tin snips.   To engrave the lettering i bought a cheap $4 engraver from Harbor Freight.  They had a small battery powered one, but i got the bigger one which plugged in.  It worked ok, but took lots of practice getting the right speed and right angle.  You don't want to press vertically or else the tip will jump around, you need to hold it at an angle kind of like a pencil.

Then on the lower tier of the trophy i nailed on smaller metal pieces, to engrave the year and name of whoever wins the trophy each year.

Overall i love how it turned out.  It's just small enough to keep in a room on a shelf, but just big enough to look out of place a bit.

Although it does get a little dirty.  This is after cleaning with silver polish after being on the shelf for a year.

Maybe next year, if Amari Cooper doesn't tank the last few weeks, i might finally win it.