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John Cappelletti's 1973 Heisman Trophy is part of an exhibit at the Penn State All-Sports Museum located at Beaver Stadium, on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University.

The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award (often known simply as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman), named after former college football player and coach John Heisman, is awarded annually by the Yale Club of New York City to the most outstanding player in the Bowl Subdivision of Division I collegiate football. Although not the only award honoring the best player in college football (The Walter Camp and Maxwell Awards are also awarded to the "best player") it is considered the most prestigious. It is awarded in early December before the postseason bowl games begin.

The trophy does not serve as a representation of a collegiate player's chances in professional leagues, but is rather an accolade for their accomplishments in college. However, essentially every Heisman winner goes on to play in the NFL, and most are among the top draft picks. However, the 2006 Heisman Trophy winner, Troy Smith of Ohio State, was not drafted until the sixth round of the 2007 NFL draft. Winning the Heisman Trophy does not guarantee future success at the NFL level. Only eight winners of the Heisman are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame,^[1] but four winners have also been named Most Valuable Player in a Super Bowl.

The trophy itself is modeled after Ed Smith, a leading player in 1934 for the now defunct New York University football team. The trophy is made out of cast bronze and weighs 25 pounds.^{[citation needed]}

Official Logo

The prestige in the award stems from a number of factors. Though balloting is open for all football players in all divisions of college football, the winners usually represent Division I FBS schools. The closest that a player outside of the modern Division I FBS came to winning the Heisman is third place. Steve McNair, from Division I-AA (now Division I FCS) Alcorn State, finished third in the voting in 1994. Gordie Lockbaum, from Division I-AA Holy Cross, finished third in the voting in 1987. Archie Griffin of Ohio State is the only player to receive the award twice, winning it as a junior in 1974 and a senior in 1975. Of all the schools where Heisman coached, the only one to produce a trophy winner is Auburn, with two—Pat Sullivan in 1971 and Bo Jackson in 1985.

Although Chicago is now a Division III school and Yale and Princeton are now Division I FCS, all three schools were considered major programs at the time their players won the award. In addition to incredible personal statistics, team achievements play a heavy role in the voting—a typical Heisman winner represents a team that had an outstanding season and was most likely in contention for the national championship at some point in that season.

Balloting for the Heisman is selective. The fifty states of the U.S. are split into six regions, and six regional representatives are selected to appoint voters in their states (the regions include the Far West, the Mid Atlantic, Mid West, North East, South, and South West). Each region has 145 media votes, for a total of 870 votes. In addition, all previous Heisman winners may vote, and one final vote is counted through public balloting. The Heisman ballots contain a 3-2-1 point system, in which each ballot ranks the voter's top three players and awards them three points for a first-place vote, two points for a second-place vote, and one point for a third-place vote. The points are tabulated, and the player with the highest total of points across all ballots wins the Heisman Trophy.

Further prestige is granted by experience: no freshman has ever won the award, Tim Tebow (2007) is the only sophomore to win it, and only a few juniors have held the bronze trophy; the rest have been seniors. Before Tebow became the first sophomore to win the award, several came close. Angelo Bertelli, Glenn Davis, Doc Blanchard, Doak Walker, and Herschel Walker all finished in the top three of the Heisman voting as freshmen or sophomores before eventually winning the award. Clint Castleberry, Marshall Faulk, Michael Vick, Rex Grossman, Larry Fitzgerald, and Adrian Peterson also received top-three placement as freshmen or sophomores, but never won the Heisman. In 2006, Darren McFadden came in second to Troy Smith as a sophomore. The first junior to win the award was Doc Blanchard ("Mr. Inside") for Army in 1945.

The Heisman is frequently awarded to a running back or a quarterback; very few players have won the trophy playing at a different position. Charles Woodson is the only primarily defensive player to win the award, doing so as a defensive back for the University of Michigan in 1997. No interior lineman on either side of the ball has ever won the award, although offensive guard Tom Brown of Minnesota (who went on to be a defensive lineman in the Canadian Football League) and offensive tackle John Hicks of Ohio State placed second in 1960 and 1973 respectively, and defensive end Hugh Green of Pitt finished second in 1980.

A number of critics have expressed concern about the "unwritten rules" regarding player position and age, as noted above. But over the years, there has been substantial criticism that the Heisman balloting process has ignored West Coast players. From 1982 (Marcus Allen) to 2002 (Carson Palmer), not a single PAC-10 or other West Coast player won the Heisman Trophy. Of course, three USC players have won the trophy in the early years of the 21st century, but no non-USC player from the West Coast has won since Stanford's Jim Plunkett in 1970.

The "West Coast bias" discussion usually centers on the idea that East Coast voters see few West Coast games, because of television coverage contracts, time-zone differences, or cultural interest. At Heisman-projection website StiffArmTrophy.com, commentator Kari Chisholm notes that the Heisman balloting process itself is inherently biased:^[2]

For Heisman voting purposes, the nation is divided into six regions—each of which get 145 votes. Put another way, each region gets exactly 16.66 percent of the votes. (Every living Heisman winner also gets a vote, but that's a good thing we'll set aside for this discussion.) Unfortunately for the Heisman folks, the regions don't break down nicely into 1/6 of the population each. Instead, three regions (Far West, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic) have more population than that—and three have less (Northeast, South, and Southwest). In fact, the Far West has the greatest population at 21.1% of the country and the Northeast has the least—11.9%.

There has also been controversy about a perceived bias against players who play in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) by critics who note the relatively small number of winners from that region.

Rashaan Salaam's Heisman Trophy

The award was first presented in 1935 by the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, New York, a privately owned recreation facility near the site of the former World Trade Center. The first winner, Jay Berwanger, was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles but declined to sign for them. He never played professional football for any team.

The first black player to win the Heisman was Ernie Davis of Syracuse. Tragically, he too never played a snap in the NFL, as he was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after winning the award, and died in 1963.

Because of damage to the Downtown Athletic Club's facilities following 9/11, the award ceremony was moved to the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square. After the Downtown Athletic Club declared bankruptcy in 2002, the Yale Club assumed the presenting honors at its facility in 2002 and 2003. The ceremony moved to the Hilton New York in 2004 and as of 2005, is held at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square. The Heisman Trophy's new home, the Sports Museum of America, is expected to open in 2008.

The Heisman Trophy is currently manufactured by MTM Recognition in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}

In 1966, current South Carolina coach and former Florida player Steve Spurrier relinquished his Heisman before he had a chance to display it. Upon receiving his trophy, the Florida Gator quarterback presented the award to university president Dr. J. Wayne Reitz so that the award could be shared by Florida students and faculty. The magnanimous gesture was so moving that Florida's student government raised funds to purchase a replacement for Spurrier. From that point on, the Downtown Athletic Club has issued two trophies to winners, one to the the individual and one to the school.

An asterisk (*) indicates players who were also the first overall selection in the National Football League Draft.
A double asterisk (**) indicates players who have earned induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

• The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award website
• StiffArmTrophy.com (attempts to project the Heisman Trophy winner through "exit polls" of actual Heisman voters)
• HeismanPundit.com (commentary and discussion)
• videos of 2007 Heisman Winner Tim Tebow on mreplay.com