By Tracy Zwick
Justin Tuck’s diamond-encrusted 2008 Super Bowl ring. Jesse Owens’s 1936 Olympic gold medal. Kevin Durant’s 2017 NBA championship ring, and Claressa Shields’s “T-Rex” championship belt. That’s just a sample of the sports-related bling on display in the American Museum of Natural History’s already sparkly Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals, in a new exhibition, “For the Win,” which opens this Friday, May 15th.
At a preview Tuesday morning, the vibe in the halls was equal parts locker room and science classroom. NY Giants legend Tuck and 19-time world champion boxer Claressa Shields talked about “champions mindset,” as well as the ice they’d each loaned to the show, while Neil deGrasse Tyson, who runs the museum’s Hayden Planetarium, discussed force, energy, momentum and mass: “There’s no better display of physics than in sports.”
To bring the heavy artillery home to the UWS, the AMNH worked with neighborhood kid-turned first-time-curator Rich Kleiman. Kleiman’s day job is CEO of the sports and media network Boardroom, and longtime manager of two-time NBA champion Kevin Durant. He was honored to work overtime at the AMNH.
“I take a lot of pride in the UWS,” Kleiman said just outside of the exhibition on Tuesday. Having grown up on the UWS and now raising his own kids in the neighborhood, Kleiman described a lifelong connection to the AMNH, a jewel in the UWS’s own trophy case.
“So, to have a small part in something like this, at this institution, involving the world of sports, is a true honor,” he told the Rag. “It has more meaning to me than so many other things I’ve done in my career.”
As a kid, Kleiman played basketball, football, and tennis within blocks of the museum, “in the PS87 yard, at the IS44 yard, and in Riverside Park.” Though when pressed for a great place to watch televised sports on the UWS, Kleiman had no ready answer.
“Wow, that’s become a harder and harder thing to identify, and an opportunity, I think,” he said. “Historically, obviously, I’d go to Blondies. I’ve gone to Asset to watch a few games by the bar. I’ve gone to The Dakota Bar to watch a few games. But you tell me!”
Kleiman collaborated with curator Vikki Tobak on “For the Win,” which is timed to open just as the NY-NJ area prepares to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Starting in June, the museum will host live watch parties on big screens within the museum, and it will open “Goal Zone,” an all-ages interactive play space where visitors can test their own soccer mettle.
Until then, visitors can focus on the exhibition’s more than 70 championship rings, medals, trophies, and jewels spanning 150 years of sports history. The objects on view include: the 2026 NFL Vince Lombardi Trophy; Breanna Stewart’s 2024 NY Liberty championship ring; John McEnroe’s 1983 Wimbledon tennis trophy; multiple Olympic torches; Chris Evert’s tennis bracelet; outfielder Joc Pederson’s pearl necklace, which became a rally signal to Braves fans in 2021; along with watches, brooches, and plaques from historic and modern competitions.
“These objects don’t often leave the hands of their owners and their families,” Tobak said, describing the show as “a rarely seen celebration of the culture of winning.”
At Tuesday’s preview, the conversation around sports and culture unfolded amongst sparkling gemstones and museum vitrines, with deGrasse Tyson framing sports as anthropology. “These are cherished objects because of what they mean to those of us who ingest sports as part of our culture.”
The athletes themselves spoke less about glory than escape. Tuck and Shields recalled their humble beginnings – Tuck’s on a pig farm in Alabama, Shields as a “skinny, poor chick from Flint, Michigan,” with a father in prison. “I wanted to win at something,” she said. So she asked herself, “Why not work hard?”
Now, improbably, pieces of both their careers sit inside one of New York’s most iconic cultural institutions. “To know I had some small part of the greatness in that room is phenomenal,” Tuck said. “It’s surreal to be included in this historic museum in this special city.”
Shields, meanwhile, admitted the museum setting itself was new territory. “Before this I’ve never even been to an art museum,” she said. “I’ve only been to an aquarium, so this is a first for me and it’s just a really great feeling.”
Looping back to the World Cup and highlighting the soccer memorabilia in the show, deGrasse Tyson asked Tuck, who’s now a managing director at Goldman Sachs, if he was a soccer fan. Tuck said he had no choice in the matter, with a wife and kids who all play the beautiful game.
“Unfortunately, we’ll be at a few World Cup matches,” he joked. “I say unfortunately because – I’ve done well, but even I don’t have enough money to pay for those FIFA tickets.”
Luckily, the AMNH is always pay-what-you-wish for NY state residents. While some special exhibitions require a paid ticket, this one does not. And that’s a win!
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Justin Tuck*, guys
(Also, let’s go Jets)