Jake Plummer and Richard Jefferson named Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade Grand Marshals

In celebration of the biggest competition in the state, former Arizona State quarterback Jake Plummer and Arizona basketball star Richard Jefferson will be representing their schools as grand marshals of the 2023 Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade.

Both are regarded as some of the most successful athletes to come from their schools and were picked for the Spirit of Competition theme during a news conference on Wednesday at the Fiesta Bowl Museum in Scottsdale.

Plummer, who led the Sun Devils to a Pac-10 championship and berth in the Rose Bowl in 1996, enjoyed 10 seasons in the NFL and led the Denver Broncos to the AFC Championship Game in 2005.

Jefferson, who enjoyed a 17-year NBA career and a championship title in 2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers, could not make the conference due to personal reasons.

"In that spirit, I'm thrilled to announce that we have two grand marshals representing one of the best and most fierce rivalries in college athletics. There's no more spirited competition in this state than ASU and U of A," Fiesta Bowl Executive Director and CEO Erik Moses said.

Plummer and Jefferson will join a long list of Arizona sports greats for this honor, including Phoenix Suns radio announcer Al McCoy, Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi, former Suns star Charles Barkley, and MLB Hall of Famer Randy Johnson.

"It's exciting to be chosen and to feel like you're still relevant," Plummer said. "As former athletes, a lot of times you can get in your own little world and forget that you've had an impact on so many people. What the Fiesta Bowl does here for the community in this Valley and the amount of people who watch the game, they really do a great job of giving back to people. I'm excited to be a part of this."

The Fiesta Bowl will host a New Year's Six postseason matchup on Jan. 1, 2024, at State Farm Stadium. The parade will be on Dec. 16 and will cover a two-mile route through central Phoenix.

"I'm so excited and honored to be a part of such a rich tradition that is the Fiesta Bowl and the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade presented by Lerner & Rowe," Jefferson said in a statement. "As a kid, I went to the Fiesta Bowl with my family, and I look forward to bringing my family to this amazing Parade and to future Fiesta Bowl games."

Plummer, one of the best ASU quarterbacks in history, has long been supportive of the football program, despite being under fire for wearing a Colorado shirt on the sidelines of a Buffaloes game.

"I got in trouble for wearing a Colorado shirt a while back. I've had that shirt for, like, 10 years. It's one of my favorite shirts to play handball in and I wore it because I was going to that game with my buddy," Plummer said.

Although Plummer still resides in Colorado, he makes the effort to visit old friends at ASU when he's in the area. Plummer went from his introductory press conference to watch ASU's practice with Athletics Director Ray Anderson and Deputy Athletics Director Jean Boyd.

He's seeing parallels between what head coach Deion Sanders is doing for Colorado's program and what the 1996 ASU team did in the Rose Bowl.

"What he's doing for those kids, giving them that confidence and believing in each other, that's all that we did here at ASU," Plummer said. "The Nebraska game was a big turning moment for us and we believed in ourselves as players. I don't even know if our coaches thought we'd win that game because we remembered the year before in Lincoln. But we believed in each other, so when a coach like Deion is teaching that to our youth, it's powerful."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jake Plummer, Richard Jefferson named Fiesta Bowl Parade Grand Marshals