As this week's Heisman Award is upon us, we wanted to find some great examples of collegiate expertise showing how Heisman candidates get recognized and sometimes even pushed into the national spotlight…sometimes the history of the award was not just the big name winners, but those who played at mid-major or smaller schools who, with the help of great Sports Information campaigns, found their way into the spotlight. Recent examples include Holy Cross’ “Back of All Trades-tailback, cornerback, throwback” Gordie Lockbaum, who played both offense and defense for the Crusaders and on the strength of a great push by SID Gregg Burke, finished in the top five in voting in 1987. There was also Plymouth State running back Joe Dudek, whose push by SID John Garner got him on the cover of Sports Illustrated and a ninth place finish in 1986. Some of the other solid campaigns, ranging from Notre Dame SID Roger Valdeserri getting a young Joe Theisman to change the pronunciation of his name from THEESMAN to THEISMAN, are listed on the following Heisman link.
Alas, this year's uniqueness seems to be lacking, from what we understand is a more uniformed selection process to some saying the Heisman folks frown on overt promotion…the website plays for Tim Tebow
