Maine State Police Trooper Tyler Maloon acknowledges he never knows what he will encounter when he goes to work every day.
But he knows the call he handled early Saturday will be one for the books: He unexpectedly transported the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The 23-year-old trooper responded Saturday to a report of an accident involving a northbound car that had struck a deer just after 1 a.m. on Interstate 95 near Exit 133 in Fairfield. He offered to give the driver and passenger a ride to the Irving gas station in Pittsfield, where the driver’s father would be waiting to pick them up.
They were an amiable couple, Allen Lennox Jr. and his wife, Megan. Their Mazda sedan had been damaged and was not drivable, so it had been towed away from the scene.
As they traveled the 17 miles north on the interstate to Pittsfield, Maloon chatted with the couple in the back seat.
“I said, ‘What brings you up here? Just traveling?’ ” Maloon recalled asking. “They said: ‘Yeah, we left today to try to beat the storm. We have to be in Bangor for a presentation,’ and they started talking about a trophy. I asked what they were talking about and she piped up and said her husband works for the Patriots and they have a trophy in the back seat.
“I didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and then I was like, ‘You’re telling me the Lombardi Trophy is in my car right now?’ ”
Maloon said in an interview later Saturday that he learned Allen Lennox works for the New England Patriots’ team operations at Gillette Stadium. The Patriots won Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5. The couple were taking the Lombardi Trophy, which is awarded each year to the team that wins the Super Bowl, to Bangor for a presentation at the Cross Insurance Center. They needed to be back in Massachusetts afterward for opening day Monday at Fenway Park, where another presentation is scheduled.
“It was definitely mind-blowing,” Maloon said. “I even said that in the car, and they both laughed. It was cool.”
Driving in the dark with the Lennoxes to Pittsfield, Maloon did not see the trophy until they got to the Irving station off Somerset Avenue in Pittsfield. Allen Lennox produced it from a case and bag, Maloon recalled.
“He took it out and let me touch it, and then he put it back,” he said, adding that Allen Lennox took Maloon’s photograph with the trophy.
The accident was the last call Maloon covered on his shift Saturday.
“I had 10 or 11 calls yesterday – three different crashes. You never know what’s going to happen, being a trooper, on a day-to-day basis.”
When the young trooper reached home in Pittsfield, he posted a story on Facebook about the incident and Katie England, who handles social media for the Maine State Police, posted the story and photo on the state police Facebook page with Maloon’s comments.
“My mind was blown – seriously what are the odds! A story for the ages!” Maloon’s post says. In the post, he recounts the incident and his discovery.
A Patriots fan, Maloon was excited about his encounter, as was his girlfriend, two young children and other family members, including his grandparents who live in Pittsfield.
“People are just kind of mind-blown, just like I was, that the trophy was actually in our town for a short while,” Maloon said.
He grew up in the town of Detroit playing football and attended Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield before moving to that town six years ago. At MCI, from which he graduated in 2011, he played football as a running back and defensive back. He also played defensive back in the Lobster Bowl in July 2011 at Waterhouse Field in Biddeford.
“I played for the East,” he said. “My daughter was born the week before I had to leave for the Lobster Bowl.”
Before being sworn in as a state trooper last June and graduating from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in September, Maloon worked two years as a police officer in Clinton.
During his three years in law enforcement, he has never had anything happen quite like Saturday’s encounter, but he has had his share of unusual moments – and received his share of accolades.
On June 19, 2015, he was on routine patrol for Clinton police on Hinckley Road in Clinton when he pulled a driver over who appeared to be operating erratically.
As part of standard procedure, Maloon conducted a field sobriety test on the 54-year-old man. But then something unexpected happened – the man collapsed, went into cardiac arrest and was gasping for air.
It was just before 9 p.m., and the 21-year-old Maloon called for emergency help and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him, which then-Clinton police Chief Craig Johnson later said saved his life.
For his actions that night, Maloon was honored with a Spirit of America Foundation Tribute award in December 2015 at the Kennebec County Courthouse in Augusta. He also received awards from the town of Clinton, the Clinton Police Department and the Maine Chiefs of Police Association for saving the man’s life.
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