The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award is a statue cast in bronze during a process called bronze medal molding, its finished product standing over a foot tall and weighing twenty-five pounds. The trophy's figure is depicted as sidestepping and straight-arming an imaginary tackler on his way down-field to score a touchdown.
When the Club Trophy Committee, appointed by the Downtown Athletic Club, set out to visualize an appropriate design for the trophy, its members bypassed the idea of the cup or bowl commonly associated with awards honoring athletic achievement. They wanted their DAC Trophy to have a distinctive look that was all its own as a visual symbol of the athletic talent it would seek to recognize each year. They finally agreed upon the figure of a muscular football player making a dash down the field in pursuit of a touchdown. Once the design was finalized, they decided, they would erect the figure in bronze as a symbolic conveyance of imperishability.
The committee then commissioned sculptor Frank Eliscu to design the trophy, which was modeled in the likeness of Ed Smith, a New York University football player who had been the leading college football player in 1934. To get the pose just right for his figure, Eliscu had developed a rough clay prototype - then after the prototype gained the approval of the Club Trophy Committee, it was passed along for inspection by Jim Crowley, head coach at Fordham University. Eliscu visited the football field on the Rose Hill campus, where Crowley had his players demonstrate the football sidestep, forward drive, and strong arm as the sculptor manipulated the limbs of his prototype until he was satisfied that its pose effectively conveyed their actions - football firmly tucked under the left arm, right stiff-arm outstretched, right leg extended forward in a lunge position. Satisfied with his developments, the sculptor cast the figure in plaster. Upon receiving approval at a 1935 dinner event at the McAlpin Hotel, which was attended by the entire Notre Dame football team and its coach who were all astonished by the utterly lifelike depiction of a football player in action. Thus, the model was approved once and for all, cast in bronze, and presented to the first Heisman Trophy recipient, Jay Berwanger, later in December of that same year - although at that time, the recipient received it as the DAC Trophy.
Heisman trophies have sold for amounts in the six-figures ranging from $228,000 in 2005 for sculptor Frank Eliscu's original plaster cast for the trophy to just over $395,000 for the 1941 trophy of Bruce Smith, former University of Minnesota halfback. In 1999, O.J. Simpson's 1968 Heisman Trophy sold, as part of the $33million settlement for his murder case, for $230,000. Not long after the 1994 chase involving his white Ford Bronco, his alma mater's replica of the trophy was stolen from Heritage Hall at the University of Southern California and has never since been recovered despite extensive investigations. In 1999, Larry Kelley also sold his Heisman Trophy for $318,110 in order to settle his estate and have something to pass on to his younger relatives when he died. Not long after selling the trophy, he had a stroke and died of a gunshot wound that was determined to be self-iNFLicted. The Heisman Trophy is arguably the most notable trophy in all of sports, being elevated far beyond the standard crystal sports award.
The author of this article is 10 year veteran in the crystal awards and recognition gifts industry.
