I always thought if I won a Super Bowl ring, I’d keep it forever and hope that my kids would do the same after I’m gone. In my home, I have a few valuable trophies that sit around collecting dust, but I very rarely stop and really admire them.

I’m not one to gawk over things. Material things come and go, but hopefully the experiences and memories will never fade.

Yesterday we learned that the son of former New York Giants’ great Lawrence Taylor sold one of Taylor’s Super Bowl championship rings for more than $230,000. Taylor had given the ring to his son, and a representative for the former linebacker said Taylor was fine with whatever his son, TJ, decided to do with it.

Tim Hightower, who is continuing to recover after a season-ending knee injury in last season’s fifth game, is a veteran back on a team full of young, developing players. Re-signing him was critical: He will provide the much-needed leadership and experience that rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III will need.

Hightower was terrific during the preseason, but he slowed down some during the regular season. If he can return from his injury with the same type of downhill, slashing style he had before he was hurt, it would complement the talents of Roy Helu and Evan Royster perfectly.

The Caps made a valiant effort to get to the playoffs. They pushed hard to make it to game seven in the second round against the top-seeded Rangers, but it was not meant to be.

As with any team that has high expectations, questions about the future started surfacing immediately after the Caps were eliminated Saturday. As of Monday, we know the answers to at least two of them.

Dale Hunter no longer will be the head coach and Alexander Semin has little desire to return to the team next season.

I saw T.O. on Dr. Phil with the mothers of some of his children. It’s clear he’s not perfect and seems to be paying the price--literally and figuratively--for some of his lapses in judgment. He discussed spending close to $80 million dollars and now finding himself in financial trouble so deep that he can’t keep up with his child support payments.

Same old story: Athlete makes a ton of money, then blows it all and somehow becomes the victim of his own circumstances. The sad reality is that this storyline does play out that way too often.

There’s no way I can justify spending that much money and it’s not going to bring any of it back, but what I can say is this: Don’t count on Terrell Owens to stay broke. That won’t last long.

If there is one word that comes to mind about the Caps, who will play a deciding seventh playoff game against the Rangers Saturday, it is “stubborn.”

Every time they seem to be on the brink of elimination, they fight their way back. They just won’t give up. They continue to find ways to stay alive. That quality has brought them to game seven in Madison Square Garden.

The number one seed will have to be slain in its own arena if the Caps are to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.