Connor McGovern Donates His Appearance Fees Back

Most athlete signings work the same way. The organiser books the player, the player is paid for their time, collectors queue up, everyone goes home. Connor McGovern does the first three parts and then gives the money away.

He signs at events set up through Unified Sports Group, a company Jen Roberts co-owns alongside J&J’s. The fee he is paid for those appearances goes back out to local charities. Roberts says he does it consistently, not once for a photograph.

He is from here

McGovern went to Lake-Lehman. He was first-team All-League in the Wyoming Valley Football Conference in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and as a senior he was the conference’s Most Valuable Player and first-team all-state.

From there it was Penn State, then the NFL. Dallas drafted him. He now plays guard for the Buffalo Bills.

That path matters to why the signings work. A collector in Luzerne County is not buying an autograph from a distant professional athlete. They are buying one from a kid who played at Lake-Lehman and made it, which is a different kind of item to own.

Why an athlete’s habits change what a signature is worth

There is a practical collecting point buried in this. Players who sign regularly at organised, authenticated events produce items with clean provenance. Every piece comes out of a session where an authenticator was in the room watching the pen move.

That is the strongest form of provenance there is, and it is why we say what we say about how authentication works. The alternative is buying a signature that entered the market through nobody-quite-knows-where and hoping the certificate is honest.

Where the money goes

The charities that come up around J&J’s are the same ones that come up around the shop’s own giving: the Wyoming Valley Challenger Baseball League, Little Eric’s Foundation, and the Christopher Ryan Bone Memorial Golf Tournament. We wrote about those here.

If you want a McGovern piece, signed NFL jerseys are here, and if there is a specific item or inscription you are after, tell us and we will let you know honestly whether we can get it.