John William Heisman was a player and coach of American football, baseball, and basketball, as well as a sportswriter and actor.
69 Facts About John Heisman
2.
John Heisman served as the athletic director at Georgia Tech and Rice.
3.
John Heisman was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954.
4.
John Heisman was instrumental in several changes to the game, including legalizing the forward pass.
5.
The John Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the season's most outstanding college football player, is named after him.
6.
John Heisman was born Johann Wilhelm Heisman on October 23,1869, in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Bavarian German immigrant Johann Michael Heissmann and Sara Lehr Heissman.
7.
John Heisman grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania near Titusville and was salutatorian of his graduating class at Titusville High School.
8.
John Heisman played varsity football for Titusville High School from 1884 to 1886.
9.
John Heisman's father refused to watch him play at Titusville, calling football "bestial".
10.
John Heisman went on to play football as a lineman at Brown University and at the University of Pennsylvania.
11.
John Heisman graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1892.
12.
John Heisman has no time to say 'please' or 'mister'.
13.
John Heisman was likely influenced by Heffelfinger to pull guards on end runs.
14.
In 1893, John Heisman became the football and baseball coach at Buchtel College.
15.
The first school to officially defeat John Heisman was Case School of Applied Science, known today as Case Western Reserve.
16.
John Heisman was contacted by Walter Riggs, then the manager of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute football team.
17.
Auburn was looking for a football coach, and Heisman was suggested to Riggs by his former player at Oberlin, Penn's then-captain Carl S Williams.
18.
At Auburn, John Heisman had the idea for his quarterback to call out "hike" or "hep" to start a play and receive the ball from the center, or to draw the opposing team into an offside penalty.
19.
John Heisman used a fake snap to draw the other team offsides.
20.
John Heisman began his use of a type of delayed buck play where an end took a hand-off, then handed the ball to the halfback on the opposite side, who rushed up the middle.
21.
Later, John Heisman became one of the main proponents of making the forward pass legal.
22.
Auburn received its first national publicity when John Heisman was able to convince Harper's Weekly to publish the 1896 team's photo.
23.
Auburn finished the 1897 football season $700 in debt, and in response, John Heisman took on the role of a theater producer and staged the comedic play David Garrick.
24.
The 1899 team, which John Heisman considered his best while at Auburn, was led by fullback Arthur Feagin.
25.
John Heisman fitted his linemen with straps and handles under their belts so that the other linemen could hold onto them and prevent the opposing team from breaking through the line.
26.
John Heisman left Auburn after the 1899 season, and wrote a farewell letter with "tears in my eyes, and tears in my voice; tears even in the trembling of my hand".
27.
John Heisman was hired by Clemson University as football and baseball coach.
28.
John Heisman coached at Clemson from 1900 to 1903, and was the first Clemson coach who had experience coaching at another school.
29.
John Heisman still has the highest winning percentage in school history in both football and baseball.
30.
John Heisman later said that his approach at Clemson was "radically different from anything on earth".
31.
John Heisman coached Georgia Tech for the longest tenure of his career, 16years.
32.
At Georgia Tech, John Heisman coached baseball and basketball in addition to football.
33.
In 1904, John Heisman was an official in an Atlanta indoor baseball league.
34.
In 1908, John Heisman became the president of the Atlanta Crackers, a minor league baseball team.
35.
John Heisman became the athletic director of the Atlanta Athletic Club in 1908, its golf course having been built in 1904.
36.
John Heisman never had a losing season coaching Georgia Tech football, including three undefeated campaigns and a 32-game undefeated streak.
37.
Vanderbilt and Auburn would dominate the SIAA until 1916, when John Heisman won his first official title with Georgia Tech.
38.
John Heisman drew much acclaim as a sportswriter, and was regularly published in the sports section of the Atlanta Constitution, and later in Collier's Weekly.
39.
John Heisman believed that a forward pass would improve the game by allowing a more open style of play, thus discouraging mass attack tactics and the flying wedge formation.
40.
The rule changes came in 1906, three years after John Heisman began actively lobbying for that decision.
41.
John Heisman said his opponents played the best football he had seen a Florida squad play.
42.
John Heisman brought the heroes of ancient Greece and the soldier dead in his armor among the ruins of Pompeii.
43.
When John Heisman had finished, Warner chortled and quietly said to his players: 'Okay, boys.
44.
John Heisman cut back on his expanded duties in 1918, and only coached football between September 1 and December 15.
45.
Flowers had grown to weigh 150 pounds and was a backup until John Heisman discovered his ability as an open-field runner on punt returns.
46.
John Heisman left Atlanta after the season, and William Alexander was hired as his successor.
47.
John Heisman went back to Penn for three seasons from 1920 to 1922.
48.
In 1923, John Heisman coached the Washington and Jefferson Presidents, which beat the previously undefeated West Virginia Mountaineers.
49.
John Heisman's teams saw little success, and he earned more than any faculty member.
50.
John Heisman met his first wife, an actress, while he was participating in theater during his time at Clemson.
51.
John Heisman met Edith Maora Cole, a student at Buchtel College, where he was coaching football during the 1893 and 1894 seasons.
52.
John Heisman considered himself an actor as well as coach, and was a part of several acting troupes in the offseason.
53.
John Heisman was known for delivering grand theatrical speeches to inspire his players, and some considered him to be an eccentric and melodramatic.
54.
John Heisman was naturalness itself, and there was not a single place in which he overdid his part.
55.
John Heisman acted not like an amateur, but like the skilled professional that he is.
56.
In May 1898, John Heisman appeared in Diplomacy, an English adaptation of Dora by Sardou, with the Mordaunt-Block Stock Company at the Herald Square Theater on Broadway.
57.
John Heisman performed in at least two plays for this company, in Brother John by Martha Morton at the Grand Theater in Atlanta, playing the role of Captain Van Sprague.
58.
John Heisman wrote to the Birmingham Age-Herald complaining about Taylor's officiating in general and specifically his cancellation of an Auburn touchdown because the scoring play began before the starting whistle following a time out.
59.
In 1900, John Heisman joined the Spooner Dramatic Company of Tampa, Florida.
60.
John Heisman started the Heisman Dramatic Stock Company while at Clemson in 1903, which spent much of the summer performing at Riverside Park in Asheville, North Carolina.
61.
In 1906 and 1907, John Heisman again performed in Crump's Park in Macon, as well as the Thunderbolt Casino in Savannah.
62.
John Heisman died of pneumonia on October 3,1936, in New York City.
63.
When John Heisman died, he was preparing to write a history of football.
64.
John Heisman was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954, a member of the second class of inductees.
65.
John Heisman was a proponent of the legalization of the forward pass.
66.
John Heisman had both his guards pull to lead an end run and had his center snap the ball.
67.
John Heisman invented the hidden ball play, and originated the "hike" or "hep" shouted by the quarterback to start each play.
68.
John Heisman led the effort to cut the game from halves to quarters.
69.
John Heisman is credited with the idea of listing downs and yardage on the scoreboard, and of putting his quarterback at safety on defense.