John Heisman

John Heisman
Sport(s)	Football, basketball, baseball
Biographical details
Born	October 23, 1869(1869-10-23)
Place of birth	Cleveland, Ohio
Died	October 3, 1936(1936-10-03) (aged 66)
Place of death	New York, New York
Playing career
Football 1887–1889 1890–1891	Brown Penn
Position(s)	Center, tackle
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
Football 1892 1893–1894 1894 1895–1899 1900–1903 1904–1919 1920–1922 1923 1924–1927 Basketball 1908–1909 1912–1914 Baseball 1894 1899–1904 1904–1917	Oberlin Buchtel Oberlin Auburn Clemson Georgia Tech Penn Washington & Jefferson Rice Georgia Tech Georgia Tech Buchtel Clemson Georgia Tech
Head coaching record
Overall	102–29–7 (football) 9–14 (basketball) 219–119–7 (baseball)
Statistics
College Football Data Warehouse
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
1 National (1917) 5 SIAA (1900, 1902, 1917–1919)
College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 1954 (profile)

John William Heisman (October 23, 1869 – October 3, 1936) was an American player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College (1892, 1894), Buchtel College, now known as the University of Akron (1893–1894), Auburn University (1895–1899), Clemson University (1900–1903), Georgia Tech (1904–1919), the University of Pennsylvania (1920–1922), Washington & Jefferson College (1923), and Rice University (1924–1927), compiling a career college football record of 186–70–18. His 1917 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have been recognized as a national champion. Heisman was also the head basketball coach at Georgia Tech (1908–1909, 1912–1914), tallying a mark of 9–14, and the head baseball coach at Buchtel (1894), Clemson (1899–1904), and Georgia Tech (1904–1917), amassing a career college baseball record of 219–119–7. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954. The Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the season's most outstanding college football player, is named after him.

Early life and playing career

Heisman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but grew up in Titusville, Pennsylvania, where he played football for Titusville High School, graduating in 1887. He went on to play football at Brown University (1887–1889) and at the University of Pennsylvania (1890–1891).

Early coaching career

Heisman coached at Oberlin College in 1892, went to Buchtel College in 1893, and returned to Oberlin the next year. While at Buchtel, Heisman had his hand in the first of many permanent alterations he would make to the sport: The center snap. This came out of necessity because the previous rule, which involved the center rolling the ball backwards, was too troublesome for Buchtel’s unusually tall quarterback, Harry Clark. It became clear that if the ball was thrown to him, the play could go on with less complication which evolved into a common practice now known as the snap that begins every play in American football. In 1895, he became the fifth head football coach at Auburn University, where he stayed for five years. In 1900, Heisman went to Clemson University, where he coached four winning seasons. A street on the campus bears his name to honor him.

Coaching career

Heisman moved from Clemson to Georgia Tech in 1904, where he coached for the longest tenure of his career (16 years). He won 77% of his football games, and had his finest success, winning a national championship in 1917. At Georgia Tech, Heisman also coached basketball and baseball in addition to football. He was paid $2,250 and 30 percent of attendance fees; later in his time at Tech, his salary went up and the percentage of receipts went down. Heisman eventually also coached basketball and track, became the head of the Atlanta Baseball Association and the athletic director of the Atlanta Athletic Club. He cut back on these expanded duties in 1918, when he only coached football between September 1 and December 15.

In football at Tech, Heisman put together 16 consecutive non-losing seasons, including three undefeated campaigns and a 32-game undefeated streak. In his first year, his team posted victories over Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and Cumberland, and a tie with his last employer, Clemson. In a game played in Atlanta in 1916, Heisman's Georgia Tech squad defeated the Cumberland College Bulldogs, 222–0, in the most one-sided college football game ever played. Heisman's running up the score against his out-manned opponent was supposedly motivated by revenge against Cumberland's baseball team for running up the score against Tech, 22–0, the previous year with a team primarily composed of semi-pro players, and against sportswriters he felt were too focused on numbers.

After a divorce in 1919, Heisman left Atlanta to prevent any social embarrassment to his former wife, who chose to remain in the city. He went back to Penn for one season in 1920, then to Washington and Jefferson College, before ending his career with four seasons at the Rice Institute.

Death and burial

Heisman died October 3, 1936 in New York City. Three days later he was taken by train to his wife's hometown of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where he was buried in Grave D, Lot 11, Block 3 of the city-owned Forest Home Cemetery.

Legacy

He was an innovator and developed one of the first shifts, had both guards pull to lead an end run, and had his center toss the ball back, instead of rolling or kicking it. He was a proponent of the legalization of the forward pass in 1906 and he originated the "hike" or "hep" shouted by the quarterback to start each play. He suggested that the game be divided into quarters instead of halves.

Heisman subsequently became the athletics director of the former Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, New York. In 1935 the club began awarding a Downtown Athletic Club trophy for the best football player east of the Mississippi River. On December 10, 1936, just two months after Heisman's death on October 3, the trophy was renamed the Heisman Memorial Trophy, and is now given to the player voted as the season's best nationwide collegiate player. Voters for this award consist primarily of media representatives, who are allocated by regions across the country in order to filter out possible regional bias, and former recipients. Following the bankruptcy of the Downtown Athletic Club in 2002, the award is now given out by the Yale Club.

Heisman Street on Clemson's campus is named in his honor. Heisman Drive, located directly south of Jordan-Hare Stadium on the Auburn University campus, is named in his honor as well.^{[citation needed]} He is also namesake of the Heisman Trophy.

Head coaching record

Football

Year	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing
Oberlin Yeomen (Independent) (1892)
1892	Oberlin	7–0
Buchtel (Independent) (1893–1894)
1893	Buchtel	5–2
1894	Buchtel	1–0
Buchtel:		6–2
Oberlin Yeomen (Independent) (1894)
1894	Oberlin	4–3–1
Oberlin:		11–3–1
Auburn Tigers (Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association) (1895–1899)
1895	Auburn	2–1	2–1
1896	Auburn	3–1	2–1
1897	Auburn	2–0–1	0–0–1
1898	Auburn	2–1	2–1
1899	Auburn	3–1–1	2–1–1
Auburn:		12–4–2	8–4–2
Clemson Tigers (Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association) (1900–1903)
1900	Clemson	6–0		T–1st
1901	Clemson	3–1–1
1902	Clemson	6–1		1st
1903	Clemson	4–1–1
Clemson:		19–3–2
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association) (1904–1919)
1904	Georgia Tech	8–1–1
1905	Georgia Tech	6–0–1
1906	Georgia Tech	5–3–1
1907	Georgia Tech	4–4
1908	Georgia Tech	6–3
1909	Georgia Tech	7–2
1910	Georgia Tech	5–3
1911	Georgia Tech	6–2–1
1912	Georgia Tech	5–3–1
1913	Georgia Tech	7–2
1914	Georgia Tech	6–2
1915	Georgia Tech	7–0–1
1916	Georgia Tech	8–0–1		1st
1917	Georgia Tech	9–0		1st
1918	Georgia Tech	6–1		1st
1919	Georgia Tech	7–3
Georgia Tech:		102–29–7
Penn Quakers (Independent) (1920–1922)
1920	Penn	6–4
1921	Penn	4–3–2
1922	Penn	6–3
Penn:		16–10–2
Washington & Jefferson Presidents (Independent) (1923)
1923	Washington & Jefferson	6–1–1
Washington & Jefferson:		6–1–1
Rice Owls (Southwest Conference) (1924–1927)
1924	Rice	4–4	2–2	T–3rd
1925	Rice	4–4–1	1–2–1	5th
1926	Rice	4–4–1	0–4	7th
1927	Rice	2–6–1	1–3	6th
Rice:		14–18–3	4–11–1
Total:		186–70–18
National championship         Conference title         Conference division title

External links

• Georgia Tech football profile
• John Heisman at the College Football Hall of Fame
• John Heisman at the College Football Data Warehouse
• John Heisman at the Clemson Wiki
• John Heisman at the New Georgia Encyclopedia