(New Carlisle, IN) - The New Prairie football team’s title of State Finalist now has a stylish ring to it.

 

For the second time in school history, the team made it to the State Championship in November, falling short in the Class 4A title game against East Central. To commemorate the team’s run to the state finals, New Prairie has ponied up for fancy championship rings.

 

The gold rings boast a blue NP surrounded by faux diamonds and sapphires. One side of the band marks the team’s 13-2 record, while the other side has each player’s last name and playing number.

 

The ring tradition in high school sports is well established, but Head Coach Casey McKim says they wanted to make this set of hardware a little special. “A lot of the schools around the state are changing what they’re doing with the rings compared to the past,” he said. “And we just thought it was such an outstanding year, we wanted to do the most we could in terms of high-level type of look for our young men, because they deserved it after the effort and time they put in this past year.”

 

In the past, sports championship rings resembled traditional class rings. “But we decided we wanted to make a unique kind of ring,” McKim said, “and there’s a lot more options and companies out there today than there was in the past, and that was really the impetus behind it.” The cost difference between the standard ring and these jewel-encrusted ones was not that different, McKim said.  A robust fundraising effort by the school and football boosters made it possible.

 

This is the third state runner-up ring for McKim. He earned one as a player, then later as an assistant coach at Valparaiso.

 

Everyone involved in the football program got a ring, including trainers and even some school maintenance workers who contributed behind the scenes on Friday nights. And the cheerleaders weren’t left out. They got rings that hang from a necklace.