33 Facts About Les Horvath

Leslie Horvath was an American football quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy while playing for the Ohio State Buckeyes in 1944.

Les Horvath grew up in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland and became a standout high school athlete despite his small stature.

Les Horvath entered Ohio State in 1939 on a work scholarship, but tried out for and made the football team the following year.

Les Horvath played as a reserve halfback on the 1942 team coached by Paul Brown that won Ohio State's first-ever national championship.

Les Horvath graduated that year and moved to Ohio State's dental school.

In 1944 acting Ohio State football coach Carroll Widdoes asked Les Horvath to rejoin the team, taking advantage of a World War II-era rule allowing graduate students with remaining eligibility to play.

Les Horvath won the Heisman and was named an All-American at the end of the season.

Les Horvath graduated from dental school in 1945 and served as a dental officer in the US Navy for two years.

Les Horvath was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1966 and the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1977.

Les Horvath was born to immigrant parents from Hungary in 1921, in South Bend, Indiana; his family soon moved to Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.

Les Horvath attended Parma Senior High School starting in 1936 and played on the track, basketball and football teams until the 11th grade.

Les Horvath decided to switch schools because he felt his basketball teammates were not taking the sport seriously.

Les Horvath's family relocated, and in 1938 he enrolled at James Ford Rhodes High School in Cleveland, one of Parma's rivals.

Les Horvath played in many games, but senior fullback Jack Graf and senior halfback Tom Kinkade got most of the carries for Ohio State.

Les Horvath passed to Sarringhaus for a 35-yard touchdown and caught another 32-yard touchdown pass from Sarringhaus in the Michigan game.

Les Horvath expected his college football career to be over in 1942.

Les Horvath finished his undergraduate degree that year and enrolled in a graduate program at the Ohio State University College of Dentistry.

Widdoes promised Les Horvath a leading role as the team's left halfback, a level of prominence he had been denied under Brown.

Les Horvath agreed to come back and be a veteran leader for a team that was composed mostly of freshmen because of older players' service in the war.

The highlights of Les Horvath's season included scoring the winning touchdown in Ohio State's annual matchup against Michigan.

Les Horvath was named a first-team All-American by sportswriters and the Most Valuable Player in the Big Ten after the season.

Les Horvath was voted by his teammates as Ohio State's Most Valuable Player.

Les Horvath won the Heisman Trophy, an award given each year to the best college football player in the country.

Les Horvath was the first Ohio State player to win the Heisman, and he remains the only Heisman winner not to have played football the previous season.

Les Horvath was sent at first to Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois for training, where he practiced dentistry and acted as an assistant to Brown, who had entered the Navy and was coaching the base's football team.

Les Horvath served in Hawaii and coached a football team there that won a service national championship.

Les Horvath later traveled on assignment as far as China as a naval dental officer.

Les Horvath signed with the Browns a week later, closing his dental office and moving to Cleveland to reunite with Brown.

The AAFC disbanded after the season and the Browns were absorbed by the NFL, but Les Horvath decided to quit football to practice dentistry back in California.

Les Horvath coached little league football and practiced dentistry in Glendale, California, a major Los Angeles suburb, for the rest of his life.

Les Horvath's wife died in 1973, he remarried two years later to Ruby Aylor, whom he met in Hawaii while on vacation in 1974.

Les Horvath was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1966 and became a member of Ohio State's athletics hall of fame in 1977.

Les Horvath was inducted into the Parma Senior High School athletics hall of fame in 2007.