ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IT STARTED WITH superheroes. As a kid, I was obsessed with these exaggerated ideals of human existence. A man could fly, run faster than a locomotive, and those buildings? He’d leap over them in a single bound.

But later Superman was replaced by Bo Jackson—who, ironically, had his own turn as a superhero alongside Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan in the Saturday morning cartoon ProStars. The exaggerated was no longer fictional, and Jackson ignited that flame, the ideal cast in bronze: a Heisman Trophy winner.

That torch was later carried by Barry Sanders and on and on, this stiff-armed statue becoming symbolic of that same infatuation with capes and tights. It was and is, as Heisman Trust president William J. Dockery would tell me, “an icon to the youth of America.”

Its recipients’ paths will always be dissected through a different lens than those of their contemporaries. Do they join the eight Heismen (Doak Walker, Paul Hornung, Roger Staubach, O. J. Simpson, Tony Dorsett, Earl Campbell, Marcus Allen, and Sanders) who would go on to Hall of Fame careers in the NFL? Are they considered part of an even longer lists of busts, a la Rashaan Salaam, Andre Ware, Gary Beban, and Gino Torretta? What makes the Heisman so powerful is that ultimately it doesn’t matter. Whether they end up being considered as a legend or a flop, their receipt of the Heisman is likely to be the first line in any of their obituaries.

What follows in this book is the award in both brilliance and imperfection, as inspirational and divisive. In the annals of American sports, what other trophy can have that same impact?

None but the Heisman.

A special thank-you to my wife, Jama, and my sons, Jack and Cooper, for supporting me through a project I’ve longed to produce.

Thanks to Tim Henning with the Heisman Trust, the sports information directors who proved so helpful along the way—E. J. Borghetti (Pitt), Jerry Emig (Ohio State), Keith Mann (Nebraska), Heath Nielsen (Baylor), and Tim Tessalone (USC)—as well as Kent Stephens with the College Football Hall of Fame, Kelly Kline, Jay Berwanger biographer Brian Cooper, Gene Menez, who in our Sports Illustrated days opened the door for me to seize the reins of the Heisman coverage and to become a voter—and, of course, my editor, Julie Ganz, for helping to make this all possible.