History of the Award
Originally known as the DAC Trophy the Heisman was made by the Downtown Athletic Club. The trophy first given to Jay Berwanger in 1935 at Manhattan, New York. One year later the awards name was changed to the Heisman because of the death of the president of the DAC, John Heisman.
John Heisman
John Heisman was born in Cleveland, Ohio in Octoer 23, 1869. His first football games were a combination between soccer and rugby. He went to Brown university at the age of 17 where he played club football. After two years there he transfered to Penn to get his law degree. There he played tackle, center, and guard for their varsity football team.
Immidiately after finishing college John got a coaching job at Oberlin College, leading them to an undefeated season after two years as coach. He later went to Auburn and Clemon to coach where he was very successfull at all of the schools.afer these schools he arrived Geogia tech, where he led the team to 33 sraight wins. After a few years of coaching here he returned to He coached at Georgia Tech, he went to Penn, Washington, Jefferson, and rice before retiring at the age of 62. His Coaching career lasted for three decades (1892-1927).
After retirement John became a writer. Some of his articles were published in magazines such as American Liberty and Colliers Magazine. He also became a football editor for the professional sporting goods journal. Because of his writing he became the first Athletic Director of the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City. While serving with this position he founded the Touchdown Club of New York and the Nationsl Football Coaches Association.
One of the best things he did was to organize the voting system to determine the best football player the country. At first he opposed this because he thought that a team should be recognized as the best, not just one person. He eventually changed his mind and created the DAC award which was given out in 1935.
On October 3, 1936 before the second award could be given out he died of Pneumonia, which is a resperatory problem caused by inflimation of the lung. A unanimous vote was taken to rename the trophy to the Heisman Trophy.
Trophy Design and History
The DAC wanted a troph that wasnt a traditional cup or bowl so they decided on a trophy with a bronze statue of a man football player driving for yardage. A National Prize Acadamy sculpture was picked to create the trophy. He created the trophy after Ed Smith, a football player from New York University. It was made first from a rough clay model. It was sent to the DAC where it was inspected. After the inspection it was decided that it should be changed. Players from the Norte Dame football posed for the new trophy. They decided to change it to a man side-stepping and stiff-arming. This was then turned into the final bronze trophy. The finished product was made of ronze and was 14" long, 13 1/2" high, and 25 lbs.
