For the Super-Stud Warrior Who Has Almost Everything

Life has had its rewards for Jamie Williams, a former tight end on the San Francisco 49ers, the team that Joe Montana led to victory in the 1990 Super Bowl. Today, at 40, the athlete formerly known as “Spiderman” has found the time to earn his doctorate degree in management, worked as an actor and technical advisor on the hit movie “Any Given Sunday,” and done regular stints as a model.

But to hear the former player talk, all this achievement pales next to one thing: his Super Bowl championship ring. “The Super Bowl ring is a lot more than diamonds and gold. It represents the ultimate achievement for the ultimate gladiator. I would compare it to being able to wear your Oscar,” says Williams. “Other sports have their thing and their ring, but the Super Bowl ring--now that’s the granddaddy of champions.”

Williams is one of an elite group of big men--there are fewer than 4,000--who possess a Super Bowl ring, which undoubtedly in sports is the gaudiest prize of all. It can weigh more than 46 pennyweight of gold--or slightly more than a golf ball--(the average man’s ring weighs 12 pennyweight), according to one major manufacturer, and containing in excess of a hundred diamonds amounting to between two to six carats.

While the players believe the ring to be one of the supreme spoils of war, the jewelry companies that produce them battle just as fiercely to win one of the biggest games in their business--the Super Bowl ring contract.

“It’s more complicated than winning the Super Bowl,” says Fred Cuellar, president of Houston-based Diamond Cutters International. He’s already invested 2 1/2 months in design time, having started with eight teams he thought were possible winners. Now, he’s fiercely focused on the New York Giants and Baltimore Ravens, who will battle in Sunday’s Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla.

Cuellar’s company, which produced Super Bowl rings for the Denver Broncos’ ‘97 and ’98 championships and for the Dallas Cowboys’ ‘95, says: “It’s not like there’s a field of rings somewhere and you just pass them out. These aren’t caps and T-shirts. As soon as a victor is named, upward of 100 companies step forward and say they believe they deserve to make the rings. And when someone wins the Super Bowl, if you haven’t already been working on the designs of the rings, you’re behind the eight ball.”

The big cheese in the Super Bowl ring business is Jostens Inc., a Minneapolis company that specializes in customized awards for championship athletes including Olympic medals, trophies and rings, not only for the NFL but for the NBA, NHL and major league baseball. The company has made the rings for 22 of the 34 Super Bowl winners.

“These are warrior rings for warriors,” says Charlie Anderson, the company’s championship ring designer. “The demographic is young men at the peak of their strength, and the rings have to embody that warrior aesthetic--the glitz, the strength, the power.”

Anderson has spent months collecting information about the teams, “like a spy,” he says. “It is a frenzy. The ring has to tell a story, and you have to get the information to put that story together.”

One thing is certain, however. The bigger the better. “It has to be identifiable from at least three bar stools away,” he says. In fact, the company holds the record for producing the largest Super Bowl ring ever--the size of a half-dollar--for William “the Refrigerator” Perry. The behemoth Chicago Bears’ defensive tackle wore a size 23 when his team won the Super Bowl in 1986 and has recently had the ring re-sized to a 25; the average man’s ring size is a 9, the average woman’s is 4 to 5.

Just like in the game itself, timing is everything for these manufacturers. Jostens uses caution in pitching the teams. “They don’t want you to make contact too soon,” says Jostens marketing director John Abel. “We send a congratulatory letter when they make the championship, but you have to beware of the ‘jinx’ factor, so we don’t press too early.”

Even the venerable Tiffany & Co. plays the game. Since the first Super Bowl in ‘67, Tiffany’s has produced the Vince Lombardi trophy, according to John Petterson, the senior vice president of marketing. Tiffany also designed one ring, for the Washington Redskins’ ‘91 championship. “We do our best to win the business, but the mass marketers [referring to the likes of Jostens] can produce samples in two days. But they can’t do our quality.”

Despite Tiffany’s reputation for refinement, Petterson admits that these rings need to dazzle. “This is the culmination of blood, sweat and tears, and they want something bold and big because of that.”

The NFL foots, at least partially, the bill for the championship rings. According to league spokesman Brian McCarthy, the organization will pay for up to 80 rings at $5,000 each. After that, it’s up to the team to pay additional costs for more rings for club executives and wives (who sometimes get smaller rings or charms) or for more expensive rings.

Like many players, former San Francisco 49er Williams wears his rings mostly for special occasions like business meetings, speaking engagements and parties. “I’d never wear it to the supermarket or a movie, though. I mostly keep it in a safe.”

Occasionally, a player who has fallen on hard times sells his ring. When this happens, a ring garners far more than the value of its gold and stones because the pieces bear a player’s name inside and out. “It’s not only the materials, but a symbol of what the player has accomplished that makes it valuable,” says Pete Siegel, an owner of Gotta Have It Collectibles, a Manhattan gallery that sells high-end sport, Hollywood and rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia and has sold several Super Bowl rings.

“Super Bowl rings are a terrific investment. They never go down in value. It’s like selling an Oscar, which I have,” says Siegel. He says that an average player’s ring might sell for about $7,500.

He sold Dallas Cowboys’ starting right tackle Rayfield Wright’s ’71 championship ring a few years ago for $15,000 but says a huge name like Joe Namath from the ’69 Jets would command $500,000. (Don’t cash in your mutual funds just yet. It’s not on the market.)

Carl Banks, the former New York Giants linebacker who has two rings from ’86 and ’90 seasons, isn’t planning on putting his up for sale either--ever. “It is the ultimate, and I’m lucky enough to have two,” he says. “There are a lot of things that underscore that I’ve had a great career, but the rings, they define a career. They’re going to be buried with me.”