Posted on 12/11/2004 7:11:49 AM PST by OESY
John W. Heisman, for whom the most famous trophy in American sports is named, never wanted his name associated with the award. Heisman was one of the most accomplished college football coaches of the early 20th century and he abhorred the notion of an individual award in what he considered the ultimate team game.
"Is it not meant to exemplify the grandeur of a thousand men?" Heisman told members of the Downtown Athletic Club when they approached him about the award in early 1935. It was a rhetorical question, but Heisman, who spent summers as a Shakespearean actor, knew how to make a point.
He refused to let the club name the trophy for him.
Heisman, the Downtown Athletic Club's athletic director in 1935, wanted nothing to do with a trophy that aspired to do the impossible, which was to choose one player among the thousands playing college football.
It is a worthwhile lesson at this time of year, when the Downtown Athletic Club is about to name a Heisman Trophy winner for the 70th time, and set off yet another controversy about why it was not some other player - one of thousands.
This year's election could be especially close, contentious or historic, if not all three. Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart is the favorite, as he was before the season started, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that breeds criticism of the Heisman process. Leinart has also had a hand in 31 touchdowns for Southern Cal, the undefeated, top-ranked team in the nation.
Right behind Leinart in most estimates is last year's winner, Oklahoma quarterback Jason White. White is trying to become the second player to win the trophy twice, which Archie Griffin did in 1974 and 1975. White is going against weighty historical baggage. Here are just a few of the juniors who won the Heisman, but did not repeat as seniors: Doc Blanchard, Doak Walker and Roger Staubach.
Then there is the Oklahoma freshman running back Adrian Peterson, who may surpass Herschel Walker's third-place finish in 1980 as the best showing by a freshman in the Heisman balloting. Some say there is a bias in the voting against freshmen because one has never won, and that Peterson could be yet another victim.
There are other candidates: Southern Cal's electrifying Reggie Bush, who is often called a better talent than his teammate Leinart, and Utah quarterback Alex Smith, who could be penalized for not playing at a more prominent national football power.
The key to understanding the mystique and impact of the Heisman is understanding that it was created not to answer or settle all of these disputes or questions, but to raise them. Members of the Downtown Athletic Club wanted to foster a national discussion about the best player in college football, and they succeeded.
They also wanted publicity for their nascent club, and they succeeded.
Protesting the selection of the Heisman winner is the same as protesting the choice in any election. Take your pick, be it the Academy Awards, baseball's Cy Young award or the race for student council president at the local high school, there will usually be grumbling about the choice or the process, if not both. It happens when there are smaller, theoretically more-qualified voting panels (most valuable player of the Super Bowl comes to mind), and it happens when the voting group is large (as it is for baseball's Hall of Fame).
There is one enduring misconception about the Heisman balloting. Many people want to turn it into a referendum on which player N.F.L. general managers will pick in next year's draft.
"It's not about the next level," the 1973 Heisman Trophy winner John Cappelletti said this week in an interview. Cappelletti, like all the former winners, is a voter for the Heisman. "It's a college award, for the college game, which is different and always has been. The Heisman is not the N.F.L. draft award."
It is also, John Heisman would be pleased to know, an individual award given within a team game. It has always been hard to win the Heisman if a player is not a leader on one of the best teams in the nation. Not just the best player on the team, but one of its leaders.
The 52 living Heisman Trophy winners like it this way. If you talk with them, they frequently emphasize intangible qualities of candidates, not statistics. The former Heisman winners will deny there is a prejudice against freshmen in the balloting. What they will insist is that they want to award the trophy to someone whose college career has included the breadth of the college football experience at its elite level: the pressure of expectations, the need to handle adversity and success, and the importance of exhibiting the attributes of a good teammate.
Judged by these criteria, voters usually are not yet sure what to make of a promising freshman. Such was the case in 1980, which might have been Walker's best college season. But by 1982, Heisman voters knew what they had in Walker and awarded him the most prized trophy in American sport.
"A freshman can win it," Cappelletti said. "But he has to have the whole package. It's not a statistical award. It's not calling up all the Heisman Web sites and comparing touchdowns and yards gained. The voters have to know who they are choosing and understand the gravity of their selection.
"This is going to change somebody's life," Cappelletti added, "and that player becomes part of a time line going back to the beginning of the modern game."
The 1935 trophy was called the Downtown Athletic Club award. It was won by Jay Berwanger, who played at the University of Chicago.
On Oct. 3, 1936, John Heisman died of bronchial pneumonia. He was 66.
The club renamed its award, and in a speech preceding the presentation of the first Heisman Trophy, the club's president, Walter L. Conwell, told a national radio audience:
"Football, to John W. Heisman, was not merely a game. He regarded it as a smelter of character, a test which never failed to separate the dross from the gold. Football, to John W. Heisman, was a crucible which exposed the true character worth of the player. We found in this creed of Heisman an expression of our own idealism to the kind of man upon whom we wanted to bestow this trophy."
John W. Heisman in 1920, while coach at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1934, Jay Berwanger, the halfback who was the first to win the Heisman,
struck the pose that served as the model for the trophy.
The tailback Archie Griffin, playing for Ohio State in 1974, is the only
two-time winner of the Heisman.
Silly me. I thought it was the New York Times that was fueling this debate, not the trophy.
ARCHIE ARCHIE ARCHIE
EDDIE EDDIE EDDIE EDDIE!!
Go Bucks!!!
Honestly, if White does happen to win the Heisman again, that isnt a bad thing. Look what the guy came back from. Look at what he has done. Sure this year has been a "down" year but hell he has 33 Tds....
Peyton Manning wuz ROBBED! :D
The Heisman has really become a joke. Not to take anything away from Reggie Bush, but how does someone become a finalist when they do not even start or get a majority of the carries?
I am tired of ESPNs double standards and whining about what they themselves created.
I agree with everything you say.
I think the January, 2004 Sugar Bowl sealed White's fate. Unfortunately, he won't repeat.
I could care less about the Heisman Award - it's all about which school has the most active and better Public Relations department....how else to explain that there has never been a winner from Alabama! Roll Tide Roll
BTW, I spent 3 weeks at the Downtown Athletic Club several years ago. It was great....if you're a football fan it's almost like you've died and gone to heaven! One night I walked in from dinner and there were members from the l955 Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Yankees sitting around the lobby; they were there for a reunion dinner to celebrate the world series they played against each other in....I got a ton of autographs....they were wonderful!
My all time Heisman winning favorite is Bruce Smith....................
Whether he's worthy of being only the second person to win it twice has to be on the minds of voters. My guess is that he'll come in third, behind Peterson.
If Leinert gets the award, it will set up one heck of a national championship game. The first time two Heisman winners have EVER played each other. And it's the starting quarterbacks. In the big game. You can't ask for more hype than that.
Since the NCAA has guaranteed the BIG-12 a seat in in the National Championship Game and/or a Heisman Trophy, I won't be suprised if the overrated White beats out the underrated Leinart.
Can anybody tell me why Cal's Aaron Rodgers isn't a finalist???
Lord Stanley might take issue with that, assuming you believe NHL hockey is an American sport.
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