Berwanger, Jay Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago was the inaugural recipient of the "Downtown Athletic Club Trophy," subsequently renamed the Heisman Memorial Trophy. Berwanger, who was born in 1914 in Dubuque, Iowa, excelled in wrestling, track, and football, becoming an all-state halfback at Dubuque High School. He went on to play three seasons for the University of Chicago Bears, earning All-American honors in 1936. That year, he set a new NCAA record with 189 yards rushing against Indiana.
Berwanger died in a car accident in 1937 at the age of twenty-three. The university has established a scholarship in his honor.
Football fans may know Berwanger from the fact that he was the first player to be awarded the Heisman Trophy. In December 1935, before a crowd of 5,000 people at Madison Square Garden, Berwanger was selected as the most outstanding player in college football. At the time, the award was known as the "Downtown Athletic Club Trophy." It was later renamed in honor of John W. Heisman, a former president of the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City.
In a poll conducted by the Chicago Tribune among former Chicago players, Berwanger was chosen by his peers as the best football player in school history. He also ranked third on the list of greatest wrestlers in Chicago Bears history.
Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago was the inaugural recipient of the "Downtown Athletic Club Trophy," subsequently renamed the Heisman Memorial Trophy... Heisman Trophy Voting Results
| 1 | |
| Player | Jay Berwanger |
| Class | SR |
| Position | RB |
| School | Chicago |
The Downtown Athletic Club of New York City established the trophy in 1935 and named it after its first athletic director, John Heisman, a player and successful coach in the 1890s and early 1900s. The trophy was initially awarded to John J. ("Jay") Berwanger of the University of Chicago. However, when Berwanger declined to accept the award because he believed that his academic performance did not merit such recognition, the committee changed the rules and allowed him to retain the prize money instead.
Heisman's name became associated with the award in subsequent years due to efforts by the Downtown Athletic Club to promote interest in football among American students. Between 1936 and 1947, Heisman's son John Jr. accepted the award on his father's behalf.
In 1948, the committee decided to end its relationship with college football and refused to honor any more players. From then on, the award was bestowed upon an amateur athlete who had displayed excellence in both sports and entertainment over a period of time. No student-athlete can win the award more than once. The last person to do so was Miami (Ohio) quarterback Ken Dorsey in 1997.
Heisman has been called "the father of modern-day college football" for his work in promoting the sport during its formative years. He is also credited with creating the spring game as we know it today because he felt that regular season games played in cold weather were not attractive to fans or profitable for schools.
"Heisman came to us in the fall of '95, and the day on which he arrived at Auburn can easily be regarded as the luckiest in the history of athletics at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute," Auburn's yearbook, the Glomerata, declared in 1897.
The Heisman Trophy was initially awarded to Jay Berwanger of Chicago University by members of New York's Downtown Athletic Club (DAC) in 1935. In 1936, the trophy was named after John W. Heisman. Archie Griffin of Ohio State became the first and only athlete to win the Heisman Trophy in consecutive seasons on December 2, 1975.
Clemson University hired Heisman as a football and baseball coach. He coached at Clemson from 1900 to 1903 and was the first Clemson coach to have previous coaching experience. In both football and baseball, he still has the greatest winning % in school history.
"Heisman came to us in the fall of '95, and the day on which he arrived at Auburn can easily be regarded as the luckiest in the history of athletics at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute," Auburn's yearbook, the Glomerata, declared in 1897.
Heisman led Yale to national championships in 1902 and 1903. Before that, he had coached at his home school, Yale, for eight seasons. He returned to Yale in 1900 after one season as the head football coach at Carlisle College in Pennsylvania. He stayed at Yale until 1908 when he was hired as the new head football coach at Harvard University. He stayed at Harvard for three years before returning to Yale where he finished out his career in 1913.
Heisman's son Steve also played football at Yale and went on to have a highly successful coaching career of his own. He is best known for leading the 1942 Michigan State Spartans to an undefeated 12-0 record and the only National Championship ever awarded by the NCAA. He died in 1970 at the age of 70.
So the Heisman Trophy is named after both John and Steve Heisman. Father and son were two of the most influential coaches in American football history and deserve all the credit for bringing the game back from where it had fallen after World War I.
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