Five Heisman winners played collegiately in the cities where they were born: SMU’s Doak Walker of Dallas (1948 winner); Ohio State’s Howard Cassady (1955) and Archie Griffin (1974 and ’75) of Columbus, Ohio; and Southern Cal’s Mike Garrett (1965) and Charles White (1979) of Los Angeles.
Notre Dame quarterback Paul Hornung is still the only Heisman winner who played for a losing team. The Fighting Irish were 2-8 in 1956. Hornung was a multithreat player, but by today’s standards his statistics are relatively modest. He completed 59 of 111 passes, three for touchdowns, and ran for 420 yards on 94 carries.
Jay Berwanger, the first Heisman winner in 1935, passed up a $15,000 contract offer from George Halas to play for the Chicago Bears. Instead, he took a job with a Chicago rubber company and served as a part-time coach at his alma mater, the University of Chicago. Partly, he did so to retain his amateur status in hopes of possibly competing in the decathlon at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Later he expressed regret about not giving pro football a try. He reportedly used his Heisman Trophy as a doorstop.
Davey O’Brien is the only Heisman winner with an award that bears his name: the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award, presented to the nation’s top college quarterback since 1981. The Davey O’Brien Foundation is based in Fort Worth, Texas, where O’Brien played for Texas Christian.
Only three Heisman winners ever went undrafted by the National Football League: Pete Dawkins, Charlie Ward, and Jason White. Dawkins, the 1958 Heisman winner, played for Army and fulfilled a military commitment after graduating from West Point. Ward, the 1993 Heisman winner, elected a pro basketball career, which lasted 10 NBA seasons. Jason White, the 2003 Heisman winner, eventually signed as a free agent with the Tennessee Titans, but he didn’t think his knees could withstand the pounding and moved on to a business career.
In 1997, Michigan defensive back Charles Woodson became the first predominantly defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy.
This year’s Michigan quarterback, Devin Gardner, has worn jersey No. 98, as a tribute to Tom Harmon (“Ole 98), the Wolverines Heisman Trophy-winning halfback in 1940. After his college playing career, Harmon was a World War II pilot. His actress wife, Elyse Knox, wove part of the parachute that saved him when his plane was shot down into her wedding dress. War injuries were a factor in his short career with the Los Angeles Rams but helped focus his attention on a successful sportscasting career, making him a trailblazer in making a transition from playing field to broadcast booth. His son, Mark, played quarterback at UCLA. After college he turned to acting and is the star of the TV series “NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service."
Heisman winners have been born in 25 different states, but Calfornia easily leads the way with 13 winners. Two recent winners were born overseas, Tim Tebow in Philippines, while his parents were missionaries, and Robert Griffin III, in Japan, where his parents were stationed in the military.
The only nonmajor city to claim two Heisman winners is Tyler, Texas, where both Earl Campbell (“The Tyler Rose”) and Johnny Manziel were born.
The Oakland Raiders have been a frequent destination for Heisman winners. Seven have played for the silver and black (Billy Cannon, Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson, Desmond Howard, Tim Brown, and Charles Woodson). Two other Heisman winners – Andre Ware and Rashaan Salaam – were with the Raiders in the offseason or during training camp, but they didn’t ever play for the team.
Only two players have finished second in the Heisman balloting in back-to-back years: North Carolina’s Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice in 1948 and 1949, and Stanford’s Andrew Luck in 2010 and 2011.
The only time the Heisman has ever been retracted, and the award vacated, was in 2005, after it was determined that Southern Cal’s Reggie Bush had broken NCAA rules by accepting cash and other gifts. He, ironically, received the highest vote total of all time. In the pros, he has been a model citizen committed to outreach efforts in two distressed cities, New Orleans and Detroit.
Despite serving prison time for kidnapping and armed robbery convictions, O.J. Simpson is still listed as the 1968 Heisman winner. While the Heisman cites a person’s integrity as a consideration in voting, as long as a winner doesn’t break NCAA rules, the conclusion seems to be that he can keep the trophy (which is actually a replica). In Simpson’s case, though, he sold the trophy in 1999 at auction.
Four Heisman winners have been Super Bowl MVPs: Roger Staubach, Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen, and Desmond Howard.
Iowa’s Nile Kinnick is the only Heisman winner honored with a stadium that bears his name, Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Kinnick was a two-way ironman on the field, averaging 57 minutes per game during his 1939 Heisman season. A Phi Beta Kappa and student body president, the "Cornbelt Comet" entered law school rather than play football, but after a year of postgraduate studies he entered the Naval Air Reserve. In 1943 he was killed when forced to ditch his plane in the waters while training to become a fighter pilot.
The most nationally visible former Heisman winner today is probably Desmond Howard of Michigan, who has been an ESPN GameDay analyst for the past nine seasons. His 99-yard kickoff return against the Patriots in 1997 remains a Super Bowl record.
