On Thursday, it was reported that Lawrence Taylor’s Super Bowl XXV ring was up for auction. Given LT’s post-football woes, this struck many as sad, but unsurprising. Then it was learned that it learned that it wasn’t LT, but his son, TJ, who was hocking the ring:
It’s evidently Lawrence Taylor’s son who is selling the ring. Jay Glazer reports, via Twitter, that Taylor gave the ring to his son years ago. Here are the tweets:
Lawrence Taylor just reached out to me through a mutual friend re the auction of his SB ring. Taylor had ZERO clue this was happening! Years ago he gave his rings to his son TJ, who apparently put it up
LT wasn’t aware at all that his son had put it up for auction. However, he had no problem with it bc he feels they are now his sons property
His longtime rep Mark Lepselter said he talked w LT who said, “Lawrence was in fact unaware of it but said he gave it to TJ (his son) and its his right to do what he wants with it. He’s fine with whatever TJ decided.”
Saturday night, current Giants defensive stalwart, Osi Umenyiora, got in on the act. He offered to buy the ring at auction and return it to LT if he could reach 1,000,000 followers on Twitter:
@OsiUmenyiora: Attn:All L.T, NYG, NFL FANS! If i get 1million followers, i will buy L.T’s ring back and give it to him. The 1,000,000th will give it to him
Ulitmately, Umenyiora’s bid for 1,000,000 followers fell short, and the ring was auctioned to an as yet unidentified person for a cool $230k:
“Honestly, because i dont know him,” he added, when asked why he didn’t just buy the ring for the linebacking “LEGEND” outright. “If im going to spend that kind of money, it will be because people love him and show it.”
Apparently, there wasn’t enough love for Taylor on Twitter, though. Later on Saturday, Umenyiora halved his Twitter goal from a million followers to 500,000, but he still fell well short; as of Sunday morning, he 52,899.
And Taylor’s Super Bowl ring was in somebody else’s hands.