2026 Sweetheart Ball Unites 40 Championship Trophies

Tavia Hunt gathered 40 championship trophies under one roof Saturday night, setting what may be a first-of-its-kind record and raising money for UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Department of Cardiology in the process.

The 2026 Sweetheart Ball, held at a venue connected to North Texas’s deepest sporting roots, drew guests who found themselves walking past the Stanley Cup, five Dallas Cowboys Lombardi Trophies, a Larry O’Brien Trophy, a Commissioner’s Trophy, and hardware tied to golf legends Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Lee Trevino, all in a single evening.

“There actually wasn’t an existing world record for something like this,” Hunt said. “But we ended up with 40 championship trophies across professional sports.”

Hunt, wife of Kansas City Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt, chairs the ball this year. Each chair picks a theme that reflects something personal, and Hunt’s first instinct was to lean into recent championship wins. Her husband steered her elsewhere. Clark Hunt told her he’d rather not make the night about their own family’s success. The suggestion opened a bigger idea: gather every trophy with a genuine North Texas connection, whether through ownership, a team’s home, or a defining moment in the region’s sports history.

Her first call went to a contact tied to Justify, the Triple Crown-winning racehorse. Then came Jerry Jones. The Dallas Cowboys owner agreed to send all five Lombardi Trophies.

“After that, it just snowballed,” Hunt said.

The Stanley Cup drew the longest lines. It doesn’t travel light. The trophy arrived with its own dedicated handler from New York, standard protocol for the one-of-a-kind hardware that the National Hockey League has never duplicated. Dallas Stars fans, still savoring the franchise’s history, got their moment with it.

Golf added an unexpected layer of intrigue. The Masters was running the same weekend, and the Augusta National Golf Club made a specific request before lending its cooperation: no photographs of certain trophies could be posted until after the tournament concluded. The hostess agreed, and the embargo held.

The full North Texas franchise roll call was something to see. The Mavericks’ Larry O’Brien Trophy stood a few feet from the Rangers’ Commissioner’s Trophy. FC Dallas contributed its Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup trophy, named for Tavia’s late father-in-law, which gave the display a particular resonance for the Hunt family.

Then there was the crowd favorite nobody saw coming.

The “Preston Road Trophy” stopped guests cold. A playful, homemade creation, it commemorates the friendly rivalry between the Hunt and Jones families. No engraver made it. No commissioner handed it out. It drew laughs and photos all night, proof that the most personal hardware sometimes carries the most weight in a room full of the real thing.

UT Southwestern’s Department of Cardiology has been the ball’s beneficiary for years. The work done there touches Preston Hollow and the Park Cities directly, from routine screenings at Presbyterian to the research pipelines that run through the UT Southwestern campus on Harry Hines Boulevard. Balls like this one move serious money. The Sweetheart Ball has built a track record of eight-figure cumulative giving to the department over its history.

Hunt said the logistics of moving 40 trophies, coordinating with leagues, handlers, owners and their security teams, turned a simple theme into a months-long operation. The Masters’ request alone required a level of event-management precision that most galas never face.

What she got in return was a room where a Triple Crown trophy stood near a Stanley Cup, five Lombardi Trophies anchored one corner, and a handmade wooden rivalry trophy drew as many phone cameras as any of them.

North Texas has won a lot. Saturday night, it had the receipts.