SAD, CRAZY AND FUNNY TALES ABOUT SUPER BOWL RINGS

Matt Crossman  Special to Bleacher Report

Larry Grantham remembers the first day he saw the ring he received after his New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. He opened the fancy box and couldn’t believe his eyes. “When you took it out, it was so shiny and pretty and everything, you didn’t want to scar it up, yet you wanted

Still, that wasn’t even halfway to the $45,000 the auctioneers expected the ring to fetch. When the prominent Las Vegas auctioneers—Victor Moreno and Kieta—learned about Grantham’s devotion to Freedom House, they pulled the ring out of the auction, even though they had widely publicized its sale and figured to make a tidy profit on the commission.

Moreno and Kieta are recovering alcoholics who admired Grantham’s work with Freedom House. “It was people like him who helped me when I started on my journey of recovery,” said Kieta. “I can’t tell you the people who came out of the woodwork telling me how much Larry helped them.”

The money Harry raised, which was supposed to buy Grantham’s ring, instead was used to pay his medical bills. Moreno and Kieta put the ring back into a box and mailed it to Grantham. He got to open the box again, and see his ring again, still pretty as ever.