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Home News NCAA Men’s Basketball Trophy Visits UT Medical Center

NCAA Men’s Basketball Trophy Visits UT Medical Center

Published: Monday, January 15, 2007

Visitors and staff at the University of Tennessee Medical Center got a special up-close look at a $30,000 Waterford Crystal trophy that men’s college hoops squads around the country are hoping to soon lay claim to.

When March Madness ends, the national men’s college basketball champions will go home with the 2007 Siemens Trophy. But as the teams still battle it out on the court during regular season play, the Siemens Trophy is making the rounds, visiting college basketball arenas and hospitals in several cities.

The four-hour display of the trophy in the lobby at UT Medical Center on Jan. 8 marked the first stop on the tour. Siemens and the medical center share a unique and successful partnership that allows patients of UT Medical Center to be among the first to benefit from the new advances and latest technology in PET/CT imaging.

“It is very exciting to have the Siemens Trophy on display here in the lobby of the medical center,” said Steve Ross, senior vice president of strategic development at UT Medical Center and an avid college basketball fan. “It is a beautiful trophy, and it is nice to see that our visitors and staff are welcome to walk right up to the trophy and take pictures posing next to it. We really appreciate Siemens for this opportunity.”

Siemens Corp., one of the largest electronics and engineering companies in the world, acquired naming rights for the National Association of Basketball Coaches trophy in 2005. Representatives from Siemens said the sparkling 37-pound trophy quickly draws a crowd the moment they put it on display.

The trophy is presented annually to the top-ranked team in the ESPN/USA Today/Coaches poll. Typically, the presentation is made during a press conference held after the NCAA Championship game.

Following the visit to UT Medical Center, the Siemens trophy was slated for visits to Vanderbilt and the University of Kentucky. Siemens representatives said they enjoyed the enthusiasm from the East Tennessee crowd during the Knoxville visit and already are planning to bring the 2008 Siemens Trophy to UT Medical Center early in the year for a visit.

The University of Tennessee Medical Center is a 581-bed, not-for-profit academic medical center, which serves as a referral center for Eastern Tennessee, Southeast Kentucky and Western North Carolina. The medical center, the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, is one of the largest employers in Knoxville. For more information about UT Medical Center, visit online at www.utmedicalcenter.org.

 

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