Death to the BCS ... trophy

I’m aware that this story has been told, but for those of you who haven’t heard it, enjoy:

A few years ago, when now-Georgia tight end Orson Charles was on a recruiting visit to Florida, he broke the national championship trophy.

Yup, broke it into a bunch of pieces, after bumping the table holding the trophy, and the Gators had to get another one.

“The whole thing shattered, and I guess they swept it up and put it in the trash can,” recalled Aaron Murray, who was Charles’ high school teammate at Plant High School in Tampa, Fla., and were both being recruited by Florida. The trophy-shattering incident happened the spring of their junior years.

Murray wasn’t there when it happened, but was on his way to Gainesville and remembers a panicked phone call from Charles.

“I broke the trophy,” Charles told Murray.

“What?” Murray said.

“I broke it. The national championship trophy,” Charles said.

Then he hung up abruptly.

(Charles, normally very accessible and talkative, has chosen not to do interviews Monday or Tuesday, according to Georgia.)

“He was upset. Not upset, but more embarrassed about what happened,” Murray said Tuesday. “I told him, Hey that’s a good thing now. If you had gone to Florida that would’ve been a bad thing. But you went to Georgia, I mean you’re worshiped for that right here. He should take more advantage of being the guy that dropped the national championship trophy.”

Murray said one of his coaches at Plant picked up a piece of the shattered trophy and took it back to the school. So now at the high school they show off a piece of Florida’s BCS trophy – brought home, in one way or another, by Charles.

“I think Urban, I mean coach Meyer, was like, You better commit and come win us another one if you’re gonna do that,’” Murray said. “I think he was pretty cool about it. They’ve got insurance on it, so they just went and got another one.”

And Charles and Murray each went to Georgia.