Nick Saban’s Alabama team won the College Football Playoff national title last season, and Crimson Tide players took home three championship rings in the process.
 |
Former Tide player Reggie Ragland shows some of his championship rings from his years at Alabama.
Photo by: AP IMAGES
|
Along with a Jostens-made ring from the CFP committee for winning the national title, Alabama designed and purchased two more rings from Jostens — one commemorating the school’s SEC championship and an additional national championship ring.
Jostens has produced rings for the BCS and CFP every year since Ohio State won it all in 2002, and this winter also will produce championship trophies for more than a dozen bowls. The CFP committee will order 125 rings for the national champions again this year, which Jostens will deliver in late February, a spokesperson said.
While Jostens is the most tenured bowl vendor, one of the biggest players behind the scenes of all this gift-giving is C&W Embroidery.
Over the next three weeks, the Rienzi, Miss.-based company will “crest” school and/or bowl logos on nearly 20,000 pieces of clothing, headwear and duffel bags. Those items will be given to players at 13 of the 41 bowl games, including the CFP matchups. This also includes the custom bowl work C&W will do for three conferences and about a dozen of the bowl-eligible schools.
C&W Vice President Will Carnell said the company’s staff size will roughly double this month, to 140 people, to run the 580 heads on C&W’s 70 embroidery machines. He said the company’s college business, all handled at its 100,000-square-foot facility, posted a 75 percent annual growth rate from 2013 to 2016.
