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Warren Moon speaks on why he’s selling off some of his Grey Cup rings, other memorabilia

andrew bucholtz

Ever wanted to own a piece of CFL history? Well, a 72-piece auction of memorabilia from legendary quarterback Warren Moon, the only player in both the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and Canton, Ohio's Pro Football Hall of Fame might just be your chance. The auction includes signed lettermen jackets from Moon's high school and college career, his 1978 Rose Bowl ring, his 1990 NFL Pro Bowl watch and jersey and his 1990 NFL MVP trophy, and perhaps most interestingly for CFL fans, four of the five Grey Cup rings he won with the Edmonton Eskimos, his 1983 CFL all-star game jersey and his 1983 Jeff Nicklin Award plaque as MVP of the CFL's West Division. There's no need to feel bad about it, either; while some former athletes wind up selling off their stuff thanks to financial problems or negative feelings about those teams, Moon told The Edmonton Journal's Chris O'Learythat's not the case with him:

“Do I need money? Oh, no. No, no, no,” Moon said. “I’m good that way. I was approached by the company (SCP Auctions, based in California) to do this and I thought a long time about it, I thought months about it, whether I wanted to part with this stuff or not.

“Other guys have done the same thing, I know Dr. J (Julius Erving) is a guy who auctioned off some of his stuff, and different players that they mentioned to me, they showed me the way that they do it and how it’s done and it seemed like it’s done in a very classy way.”

Now 57, the member of both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame said he’s trying to downsize at this stage in his life.

“I kept the things that were really, really special to me, but (it’s not hard to part with things) because that was a time in my life that was good. It was fun, I celebrated it,” Moon said.

“I had a trophy room, all of those things. I’ve since downsized my home. I used to have a really big home in Houston and, when I was much younger and still playing, I displayed a lot of my things. I was never able to display everything and I was never a guy that wanted to make my house like a shrine of me.

"I wanted my home to be more of a home. I wanted a lot of pictures of my kids, pictures of my family and things like that, not so much about who I am. The trophies had never been a huge part of who I am. The accomplishments are in my mind and have been the more important thing to me.”

Moon has kept his 1980 Grey Cup ring, which he told O'Leary was the most special to him. What's perhaps even more interesting is what he said about his life these days, though. Moon's working as a Seattle Seahawks broadcaster and running a sports marketing and entertainment company, but he's interested in perhaps taking the jump into NFL ownership one day. He'd also consider owning a CFL franchise, but only if the Eskimos elected to move away from community ownership:

“Ownership would be something that I would be interested in and am still interested in the National Football League,” he said, adding that he keeps tabs on the Eskimos and felt for them as they went 4-14 this year.

Given the stakeholder/community-owned status of the Eskimos, ownership of his former team is something he hasn’t considered.

“The way the team (Eskimos) is set up, there is really no way that I could be the owner. If something like that was to come up, if I had an opportunity there, that would be something I would be very interested in,” he said.

While the B.C. Lions and Toronto Argonauts could be available for purchase in the next few years, Moon, like so many other former Eskimos, bleeds Green and Gold.

“If it was in the Canadian Football League, it’d have to be to the Eskimos. My loyalty is definitely to that organization,” he said.

It's unlikely the Eskimos are going to go that way any time soon, but you never can predict the future, and it's good they have a wealthy alumnus like Moon who'd be interested in case they do decide to move to a single-owner model. It's also great to see that Moon remains interested in the CFL, which was so crucial to his career. He may be selling off some of his memorabilia, but he still has fond memories of the league and his time there.

For those interested in Moon's memorabilia, the auction runs through 10 p.m. Eastern Saturday.