Thursday, May 13, 2010

John W. Heisman

John W. Heisman
By Daniel Shambaugh

Edited by Ruby Nemec

Abstract

The little town of Titusville is home to one of the most recognized icons in the history of football. John Heisman moved there from Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up playing football, baseball and gymnastics for the local high school. He went on to change the game of football. Heisman will be remembered has one of the greatest coaches and biggest influences to the game of football. He contributed to the offense, statistics, and the legacy of college football.


Since the beginning of football in America, many say that a single players changed the game. Players like Sammy Baugh changed the passing game with the way he slung the ball around the field. College coaches try to change the offensive side of the game with running the spread offense which causes the defense to have to guess whether the play will be a pass or run. NFL coaches like Bill Walsh came up with the west coast offense centered on short crossing passes to move the ball. The little town of Titusville is home to one of the most recognized icons in the history of football. One thing almost every person that has been in the game of football has in common is that John Heisman is the reason the game is played the way it is today. John Heisman contributed to American football with advancements of the offense, development of the statistical part of the game, and the legacy of Heisman trophy.

John Heisman started contributing to football when he attended Brown University and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. He played football for both schools but graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a law degree. John Heisman was unable to practice law because of a freak football accident that forced him to wear glasses (Brandt 3). The accident led him to coaching football. Immediately after college, he got his first coaching job at Oberlin College, leading the team to win all of its seven games in only the second year of the football program (Whalen 12). As he continued to coach he became the innovator of the offense.

When the game of football began, the offense was played differently than it is today. The center always sent the ball back to the running back and he ran the ball the way the play was designed. The center sent the ball back to the running back one of two ways. The snapper would just roll the ball on the ground back to the running back. Sometimes he would toss it back, similar to the shotgun snap of the current generation. John Heisman was a lineman when he played football and came up with an idea to fix that type of snapping the ball.

Heisman suggested having the quarterback stand behind the center and stick his hands under and between the legs of the center to receive the ball. Since the ball was being sent right from the center’s hands to the hands of the quarterback, this style helped reduce the number of turnovers caused by the old form of snapping the ball. Along with snapping, the quarterback used a verbal cue such as the “hike” sound to get the center to snap the ball. The snap was a first of changes Heisman would make to the offense.

During the early years of football, plays only consisted of running the ball on every down. The only pass that was aloud was a pass backwards before Heisman. John Heisman was an advocate of trying to get the forward pass legalized. Since the forward pass was a new option in the offense, defenses had never seen it; they had difficulty defending against it. The forward pass gave a new way to advance the ball instead of just running which increased the yards gained during the games (Sampson). The passing game has changed drastically since the inception of the forward pass.

The passing game has taken the game over as the main form of moving the ball. Running the ball is considered to be the old fashioned way of playing the game. The Super Bowl is an example of how much the passing game has changed the game with Drew Brees tying a record for most completed passes during the game. Now quarterbacks are being protected so that the game does not suffer from the most influential players of the game getting hurt by late, illegal, or accidental hits. The forward pass is such a big part of the current game that college players are changing their throwing motion before the draft to suit the style that NFL teams desire. Some of the college quarterbacks deliver the ball in a slow long range of motion which in the NFL, will be easier for the defense to strip and see where the ball is being thrown. The passing game helped change the game but so would his offensive formations.

John Heisman is also credited with being the innovator of the wing T offense. Prior to his use of the wing T, most teams would line up the same on every play. Heisman’s offense gave him more options of how to line up his players in order to disguise the plays. The ability to disguise made it hard for the defense to read the offense. That is why Heisman had such a successful coaching career. While using the forward pass and wing T offense, he was able to set a record that will be hard to break. John Heisman led Georgia Tech to its record-setting score of 222 to 0 in 1915 against Cumberland (Clary 69). He helped the offense increase their yards per game and helped changed the statistics for the game.

The game was changing and Heisman felt the scoreboard should as well. He is credited with getting the game to be four, fifteen minutes quarters, instead of the two forty-five minute halves. John Heisman was instrumental in getting the scoreboard to show the down, distance, time, and score (Clary 69). He was trying to improve the game and make his players better. He wanted his player to work hard, just like their blue collar coach.

Eventually, John Heisman retired from coaching and moved to New York. The Downtown Athletic Club in New York constructed a skyscraper for adults who wanted to participate in sports. After the skyscraper was constructed, the club elected John Heisman to be the first athletic director of the Downtown Athletic Club. He was required to go to other athletic clubs in cities like Chicago, to find out how to best run the New York club. Through Downtown Athletic Club, Heisman organized and set into motion the structure and voting system to determine the best collegiate football player in the east. Though Heisman initially opposed pointing out an individual over a team, he ultimately felt it a consummate team accomplishment to have such recognition. The award was to be given in the club’s name and go to the best player east of the Mississippi River (August 20).

The award was first given in 1935 to Jay Berwanger. Before the second award was handed out in 1936, John W. Heisman succumbed to pneumonia. The officers of the Downtown Athletic Club unanimously voted to rename the Downtown Athletic Club Award, The Heisman Memorial Trophy that year (Whalen 12). The trophy is now voted on by members of the media and former winners of the annual award. There are players that have won the trophy and never played in the NFL, but then there are others that won and had great careers in the NFL. The trophy is to give the college football heroes a chance to be remembered. Heisman’s legacy will be carried on as long as the trophy is given to the best player in college football.

John Heisman grew up in a hard working town in western Pennsylvania. He coached similar to the way blue collar workers worked. The difference was that Heisman had attended two Ivy League schools and earned a degree from one. He changed the game of football just like his hometown of Titusville is credited with changing the oil industry. Heisman would be one of the first in a long list of great football players and coaches to come from western Pennsylvania, players like Dan Marino, Tony Dorset, Jim Kelly, Ty Law, and coaches like Bill Cowher.



Works Cited

August, Bob. The Heisman: Sixty Years of Tradition and Excellence. Bronxville, New York: Adventure Quest, INC. 1995. Print.

Brandt, Nat. When Oberlin Was King of the Gridiron: The Heisman Years. Kent, Ohio: Oberlin College, 2001. Print.

Clary, Jack. Great College Football Coaches. New York: Gallery Books, 1990. Print.

Devaney, John. Winners of the Heisman Trophy. New York: Walker and Company. 1990. Print.

Sampson, Fred. Personal Interview. 8 March 2010.

Whalen, Robert B. “John W. Heisman, Innovator of the Game.” Heisman Journal 83.1

December 2008: 12. Print. 

No comments:

Post a Comment