The man behind the trophy

It might be a bit late in the day for this, but with the Heisman Trophy ceremony tonight (I haven't watched ESPN today, but surely they have a countdown running somewhere), I thought I'd link to the profile of the man the trophy takes its name from in yesterday's New York Times.

Obviously, to get such an award named after him, John Heisman would have to have been an important man in the history and development of American football. But if you're like me, and didn't know much about what he was responsible for, it's pretty interesting stuff.

Heisman contributed many innovations to the game, things we take for granted now. But can you imagine football without:

▪▪ The forward pass?

▪▪ The game being divided into quarters?

▪▪ The center snap?

▪▪ Yelling "Hike!"?

▪▪ Calling an audible at the line of scrimmage?

▪▪ A scoreboard?

Another intriguing aspect of Heisman's story is that he was staunchly opposed to the Downtown Athletic Club's annual award for the best college football player in the country being named after him. He also didn't like the idea of giving such an honor to a single player in a team sport.

Once Heisman passed away in 1936, however, the D.A.C. named the trophy after him.

The article's definitely worth checking out, even though I just gave away most of the factoids. At the very least, it'll give you something to read while ESPN tries to kill an hour before ceding to inevitability and giving the Heisman trophy to Troy Smith.