Small-town roots, big-city fame: How NMB native helped build Super Bowl icon in Atlanta

The goal of Sedrick Livingston and his team is to knock it out of the park when it comes to their projects.

This time, the North Myrtle Beach native admits, they actually knocked it into the park.

Livingston, who co-owns a creative fabrication company called Fascinate based in Duluth, Georgia, recently took charge with partner Joshua Polley in building a 25-foot tall Vince Lombardi Trophy replica that has been on display in the city at Centennial Olympic Park for Super Bowl Live ahead of Super Bowl LIII. The massive structure, built on scale as a larger version of the Super Bowl winners’ trophy, is made out of aluminum steel and wood and is topped with a football that is 8 feet in diameter and 13 feet, 8 inches long.

“This was a big cherry on top. I joke with everybody, telling them that ‘yeah, we knocked the ball into the park’ because in this case the ball actually went into Centennial Park,” said Livingston, who graduated from North Myrtle Beach High School in 1985. “We’re normally trying to knock it out of the park; this time we knocked it right into the center of the park.”

The structure has awed the many visitors who have flocked to Atlanta for the Super Bowl, which pits the New England Patriots against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday evening.

Livingston, Polley and the rest of the 20 or so members of Fascinate have constructed platforms for American Idol, TV game shows, TV news sets and other events. However, Livingston admits this one is special.

“I feel like I’ve been waiting on this project for 30 years of my career,” he said. “We have built so many things together that sometimes it gets a little hard to get excited, but this one did it. Very exciting, very challenging, prestige. … chance of a lifetime for a guy like me.”

Livingston comes from humble beginnings. His father was a farmer, lumberjack and worked in a sawmill. Livingston said those roots led to his fascination of working with his hands.

“I come from North Myrtle Beach, tobacco farm, farm kid, small town,” Livingston said. “My parents both taught us to take what we had and make what we want.”

Livingston said that throughout life he’s become more and more interested in building things.

“I’ve always had a knack at science projects, history projects,” he said. “Those were my favorite things in school when I got to build something and, as it turns out, that’s become my profession.”

Even his first vehicle became a project, he said.

“I painted my first pickup truck, a 1968 Chevy, with a spray bottle that I bought at Boulineau’s, where I was a bag boy and a stock clerk,” he said, referring to the Cherry Grove grocery and more store that’s been in North Myrtle Beach since 1948. “I sanded it down, hammered all the dents out of it, put body filler in and painted it. I’ve always been interested in building something beautiful that’s never been done before.”

He said he believes Fascinate’s Lombardi structure is the first of its kind. And while he takes great pride in it, that it pertains to the sports world isn’t of major significance to Livingston. He never played sports while instead taking an interest in the arts, playing the saxophone and participating in performance arts.

After all, his father wasn’t one to push his kids into sports.

“He always expressed his concern that if you go out and crack your head up against another guy’s head you’re going to get hurt and might not find out until you’re 50 years old,” Livingston said. “He does not support the playing of the rough sports. And as I got older and met people with back issues and herniated disks and things from football, I thought ‘Wow. Pop really knew what he was talking about.’”

In fact, Livingston said he has little interest in entertainment that is common to most people.

“I don’t know movie stars and I don’t know sports entities because I literally don’t have a television at home,” he said. “I’m always thinking about the next process, the way to build and the plans.”

That’s a mentality that has made Livingston and Polley so close, Livingston said. They both think alike, he says, and that’s helped them build a company that’s been involved in some high-profile projects.

“It’s a different thing when you have a company that’s built on your passion and love of something than it is just to go into business to make some money,” he said.

This is Livingston’s second time working on a Super Bowl project. He said he worked for another company in Atlanta that built a halftime stage for one of the Super Bowls at the old Georgia Dome during the 1990s. And though Sunday’s big game itself is of little significance to Livingston personally, the experience of building a structure that has become a major symbol for the game has left a lasting impression.

“It was the time of my life,” he said.