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The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award (also known simply as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman), named after former college football player and coach John Heisman, is awarded annually to the most outstanding Collegiate Football player in the U.S. The award considered by some to be the most prestigious in Americancollege football. It is awarded in December before the postseason bowl games.
Overview
The prestige in the award stems from a number of factors. Though balloting is open for all football players in all divisions of college, the winners usually represent Division I-A schools. In addition to incredible personal statistics, team achievements play a heavy role in the voting - a typical Heisman winner represents a team that had an outstanding season and was most likely in contention for the Division I-A national championship at some point in that season. Further prestige is granted by experience - no freshmen or sophomores have ever won the award, and only a few juniors have held the bronze trophy; the rest have been seniors. Finally, the Heisman is frequently awarded to a running back or a quarterback; very few players have won the trophy playing at a different position.
Balloting for the Heisman is selective. The fifty states of the U.S. are split into six regions, and six regional representatives are selected to appoint voters in their states (the regions include the Far West, the Mid Atlantic, Mid West, North East, South, and South West). Each region has 145 media votes, for a total of 870 votes. In addition, all previous Heisman winners may vote, and one final vote is counted through public balloting. The Heisman ballots contain a 3-2-1 point system, in which each ballot ranks the voter's top three players and awards them three points for a first-place vote, two points for a second-place vote, and one point for a third-place vote. The points are tabulated, and the player with the highest total of points across all ballots wins the Heisman Trophy.
The trophy serves in part as a representation of a collegiate player's chances in professional leagues, such as the NFL (to which many Heisman winners go after their collegiate careers). Most Heisman winners have amazingly high stock, and are considered among the absolute best players available on draft day in any given year. However, winning the Heisman Trophy does not guarantee future success at the NFL level.
The award was first presented in 1935 by the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, New York, a privately owned recreation facility near the site of the former World Trade Center. The Club was forced to close its doors in 2002 due, in part, to financial troubles resulting from the 9/11 attacks. The award ceremony is now hosted by the Yale Club in Manhattan, and as of 2005 was being held at the Nokia Theatre. The award is presented independently from the annual College Football Awards ceremony (where most other related awards are presented).
*Ohio State halfback Archie Griffin won the award two years in a row. He is the only person to ever achieve this honor.
Trivia
The first winner, Jay Berwanger, was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles but declined to sign for them. He never played professional football for any team.
The trophy itself is modeled after Ed Smith, a leading player in 1934 for the now defunct New York University football team. The trophy is made out of cast bronze.
The first junior to win the award was Doc Blanchard ("Mr. Inside") for Army in 1945; though he played the next year, he missed two games with injury and his teammate Glenn Davis ("Mr. Outside") won.
Only two high schools have graduated multiple alumni who would eventually win the Heisman Trophy. Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California produced John Huarte (Notre Dame) and Matt Leinart (USC), most recently, but Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, Texas produced the first combo with Davey O'Brien (TCU) and Tim Brown (Notre Dame).
1993 winner Charlie Ward of Florida State never played in the NFL, opting instead to play pro basketball in the NBA, where he played for 11 seasons.
Of the schools where John Heisman coached, the only one to produce Heisman Trophy winners is Auburn (Patrick Sullivan and Bo Jackson).
There have been three occasions when teammates from the same school claimed the Heisman Trophy in back-to-back years: Yale (1936 & 1937), Army (1945 & 1946) and USC (2004 & 2005).
The closest that a player outside of the modern Division I-A came to winning the Heisman was Steve McNair, who played for Division I-AA Alcorn State. He finished third in the voting in 1994.
The first black player to win the Heisman was Ernie Davis of Syracuse. Tragically, he never played a snap in the NFL, as he was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after winning the award, and died in 1963.
Although Chicago is now a Division III school and Yale and Princeton are now Division I-AA, all three schools were considered major programs at the time their players won the award.
