Heisman Trophy runner-up: What it’s like to come back so shut to school soccer immortality

Stanford operating again Toby Gerhart sprinted round, blasted via and handed over Notre Dame’s protection in a efficiency so full followers chanted “Heis-man, Heis-man” as he left his house stadium that November evening in 2009.

Within the Huge Ten’s first consensus No. 1 vs. No. 2 sport in 1985, Iowa quarterback Chuck Lengthy guided the top-ranked Hawkeyes on a game-winning drive to beat Michigan 12-10. Iowa finally secured the outright Huge Ten title due to that victory.

Texas quarterback Colt McCoy outdueled Oklahoma rival Sam Bradford to win the Crimson River Rivalry, pounded Texas A&M within the season finale and accomplished greater than 80 p.c of his passes seven occasions throughout his 2008 season.

All three grew to become Heisman Trophy finalists. All three sat via the hourlong award present, participated in dwell tv interviews and waited anxiously for the second of reality to reach.

“The nerves are actual,” Gerhart stated. “When it got here to that last industrial and strolling on the stage and so they’re about to announce it, clearly, my coronary heart was racing and sweating a bit of and my fingers crossed that it was my identify referred to as and never someone else’s.”

“It breaks away for the final industrial proper earlier than the announcement, and my coronary heart is simply pumping via my chest,” Lengthy stated. “We’ll be proper again to announce the Heisman Trophy winner.”

Then got here the letdown.

“I used to be a bit of disillusioned,” McCoy stated. “I actually thought I had an opportunity to win it the primary time I went.”

Auburn operating again Bo Jackson topped Lengthy by 45 factors to win the closest vote within the first 73 years of Heisman Trophy balloting. McCoy fell brief by 122 factors to Bradford, with whom he shared the Huge 12 title. A yr later, Alabama operating again Mark Ingram edged Gerhart by 28 factors and McCoy by 122 to change into the Tide’s first Heisman winner within the tightest vote ever recorded.

Jackson, Bradford and Ingram are enrolled in sports activities’ most prestigious and unique fraternity. The title “Heisman Trophy winner” precedes each introduction for the first-place finisher, and maybe solely Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame inductee matches that standing. One other winner accepts his place in school soccer immortality Saturday evening, and one other runner-up will change into the equal of a second son of a soccer king.

Practically each finalist is a consensus All-American, and most change into future School Soccer Corridor of Fame inductees. However endlessly they dwell within the shadow of the winner, in the event that they’re remembered in any respect. Largely, runners-up change into the reply to obscure sports activities trivia questions, which Gerhart found after numerous texts from associates. Lengthy handled that reality for greater than twenty years earlier than Gerhart took that acclaim.

“I grew to become a extra well-known No. 2 than most guys who’re No. 1,” Lengthy stated.

What occurs to the runner-up after the ceremony?

When the Heisman Belief broadcasts the finalists, the group arranges their industrial air journey to New York Metropolis someday earlier than the announcement and return flights Sunday morning. The Heisman Belief then rebooks the winner’s flight for Monday, after the Sunday dinner gala.

“There’s a reception afterwards for the finalists that don’t win the award Saturday night,” stated Tim Henning, Heisman Belief affiliate director. “Then we have now a hospitality suite that they will go in Sunday earlier than they go house. However as soon as they depart again for campus, there’s not a lot additional communication with the runner-up and the opposite finalists after the precise weekend that they had been invited.”

Runners-up nonetheless have notoriety on their house campus or amongst former convention rivals, however nationally they typically mix into the background alongside different nice gamers from their period. Solely in uncommon conditions does second place obtain long-lasting fame from the broader school soccer panorama.

The very best-profile contest and controversy got here in 1997 when Michigan defensive again Charles Woodson overtook Tennessee quarterback and Heisman favourite Peyton Manning to assert the trophy. It spoke to the game’s regionalization and the way voters generally insurgent in opposition to the clear, nearly anointed, front-runner.

No program’s Heisman hopefuls have suffered from regional bias greater than Stanford. From 2009 via 2017, the Cardinal featured 5 second-place finishers. After Gerhart, quarterback Andrew Luck positioned No. 2 in 2010 and 2011, and Christian McCaffrey was second to Alabama operating Derrick Henry in 2015. Operating again Bryce Love completed second in 2017 behind Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield.

“I feel it’s an actual factor, the regionality piece of it,” stated Gerhart, who now works as director of subject gross sales for Asurion in Nashville, Tenn. “Being in Nashville within the Central time zone when Stanford comes on at 9:30 at evening, I watch perhaps half of it, and I’m a Stanford fan.”

The Mannings have their very own membership as Heisman finalists with out the trophy. Each Archie Manning (1970) and Eli Manning (2003) positioned third of their years as Ole Miss quarterbacks. Oklahoma has essentially the most runners-up with seven. Notre Dame, Iowa, USC and Tennessee are tied with 4, behind Stanford’s six. No Tennessee participant has claimed the Heisman, and Iowa has just one, Nile Kinnick, who gained it in 1939.

Kinnick’s trophy was used as a prop throughout a summer time advertising marketing campaign for Lengthy in 1985. The athletics workers produced a industrial of an out of doors scavenger hunt with Lengthy in search of the Heisman Trophy because the prize. The Hawkeyes’ first runner-up was defensive sort out Alex Karras in 1957. Karras was the primary of three defensive linemen — becoming a member of Pitt’s Hugh Inexperienced in 1980 and Michigan’s Aidan Hutchison in 2021 — to complete second. Three offensive linemen additionally completed second. The latest was Ohio State’s John Hicks in 1973.

The legacy of the Heisman runner-up

Loads of Heisman acceptance speeches change into revered and historic. Penn State operating again John Cappelletti choked up whereas dedicating the trophy to his youthful brother dying of leukemia in 1973. Barry Sanders’ father wiped away tears whereas accepting the trophy on his son’s behalf in 1988 when the Oklahoma State operating again was set to play Texas Tech in Japan. LSU quarterback Joe Burrow’s emotional deal with about his poverty-stricken house area of southeastern Ohio generated heartfelt reactions.

For runners-up, their acceptance speeches vanish instantly after the announcement, in the event that they’re produced in any respect. Gerhart opted to not write one, which is his normal process for all conditions. Minutes from his arrival on the Downtown Athletic Membership ballroom, Lengthy’s then-fiancee requested him whether or not he had a speech ready.

“It was all surreal like, ‘What am I doing right here?’” Lengthy stated. “I’m a finalist for the Heisman; it’s me and Bo Jackson. I simply by no means thought my wildest desires I’d be at that time.

“I type of put one thing collectively on the elevator, the outdated elevator speech, proper? I had a pen in my pocket, so I wrote some issues down on a chunk of paper, and a minimum of I had one thing I used to be gonna say if I gained.”

Gerhart, Lengthy and McCoy entered every ceremony with totally different mindsets. All of them knew the votes could be shut.

“The second time round, so far as expectations goes, we battled via quite a bit my senior yr,” McCoy stated. “We obtained higher and higher because the yr went on. However I didn’t put up the numbers that I did in ’08 simply because the video games had been a bit of bit nearer and tighter.”

There’s a residual impact from not successful the trophy, past lacking future Heisman Belief engagements and pageantry. Maybe that standing may have elevated Gerhart from the second spherical to the primary as an NFL Draft decide, he puzzled. It actually prices runners-up industrial success and income, however not their humorousness.

“I nonetheless joke round with my spouse, and I’ll be watching school soccer or one thing on the sofa,” Gerhart stated. “The Heisman home industrial comes on, I’ll nonetheless sarcastically say, like, ‘That would have been me on there.’”

“The one factor I’d inform folks was Bo gained that Heisman, however I’m the higher athlete,” Lengthy stated.

Lengthy later skilled a special view of the Heisman as an assistant coach at Oklahoma. In 2000, Lengthy was the Sooners’ quarterbacks coach, and his pupil, Josh Heupel, completed second to Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke in Heisman voting. In 2003, Lengthy coached Oklahoma quarterback Jason White to the trophy.

“That was actually a particular second for me,” Lengthy stated. “I had the entrance web page of The Oklahoman on my wall of him successful it. There’s an amazing story behind that. I imply, he actually persevered via two dangerous knee accidents.”

Within the course of, Lengthy joined White in each exercise the Heisman Belief provided, one thing he couldn’t do in 1985.

“I advised Jason, ‘Hey, I lastly made it to the dinner.’”

(Prime photograph of Toby Gerhart: Ezra Shaw / Getty Pictures)