It has been more than two decades since Dallas delivered a Super Bowl championship. But in that time, one North Texas-based factory has delivered championship rings to many of the big game winners.
The work at the Jostens plant in Denton might just have a familiar ring to it. Jostens began designing and producing class rings here more than 50 years ago.
"No two rings are the same," said Ken Sprabeary, who has worked at the Denton plant for nearly as long as it's been open — and has done just about every job.
"A friend of mine said there's a new company coming to town," Sprabeary recalled. "That was 1969. I said, 'I'll go see what they look like.' Been here ever since."
Each and every one of the 5,000 rings that comes out of the Denton facility each day goes through rigorous quality control.
"Every day we are under pressure here," said Guillermo Figueroa, a master jeweler who joined the work force of about 450 three years ago.
Perfection has resulted in some of Jostens's most prolific accounts, including building championship rings for 33 of the 51 Super Bowl winners before this year.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
"Most of them," Sprabeary said. "We've done more than anybody else."
And they hope to do more. Jostens is headquartered in Minneapolis — site of the recent Super Bowl LII, and the company has design plans for rings ready to be presented to the winners, the Philadelphia Eagles. In January, the company began drawing up designs for rings for all 12 NFL playoff teams.
The rings have grown more elaborate through the years. Last year's New England Patriots championship rings included 283 diamonds — a nod to the 28-3 deficit New England overcame to defeat the Atlanta Falcons.
It's painstaking, precision and time-consuming work.
"Sure, I'm proud," Figueroa said. "Because everything I do, they're expecting to get a very nice ring at the end."
That ring has long eluded Sprabeary's favorite team.
"Cowboys. Unfortunately it's been a while since we've seen them at the championship level," he said. "But we'll get there."
Jostens did not make the rings for the three Cowboys championships of the 1990s, but it did produce some of the Cowboys' earlier championship rings.
The Denton factory ships 600,000 rings each year — a championship product, no matter the occasion.
"It's their Super Bowl ring, if you will," Sprabeary said.
