When ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit asked University of Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota if he wanted to win the Heisman, he said, “Honestly, um, and I mean it, no, not really. You know, I’d rather be named champion. the Super Bowl or featured as a national champion, than the Heisman Trophy. If you can go out there and be featured that way, you know, it says a lot more about your team than it does about yourself.”
Many assume he was just another athlete who got a good media workout and perhaps he wasn’t being as candid as he claimed in that interview. Only Mariota knows the truth, but what I do know is that if Mariota did his homework on other Heisman Trophy winners, he would be wise not to want to win the award. Given that he’s about to start his redshirt junior year as a college graduate, it’s a good bet that Marcus is as adept at doing his homework as he is at playing football.
The facts show that only eight Heisman Trophy winners in history have been inducted into the National Football League Hall of Fame. Of those eight members, only one was a quarterback, Roger Staubach, who won the award in 1963 and was inducted into the NFL HOF in 1985, eight years before Mariota was born.
Seventeen of the last twenty-five Heisman Trophy winners have been quarterbacks, and probably the two most distinguished players of the seventeen are Carson Palmer and Cam Newton. Of that group, only Palmer, Newton and Robert Griffin III have been invited to play in the pro bowl. Only Palmer and Ty Detmer have started in an NFL play-off game during their NFL careers. Throwing seventeen darts at a board that randomly placed all the names of draft-eligible quarterbacks during those same years would likely produce a more distinguished list of NFL quarterback careers.
So is there a Heisman Jinx as some claim? I do not think. Most likely it’s a combination of things. They state that the Heisman Trophy will be awarded to a person designated as the outstanding college football player in the United States. I think most of the time, that’s not the case. It tends to be awarded annually to the best player on one of the best teams, and the hype often overshadows performance in the eyes of some voters. Regional biases also play a role in who wins the prize. There is also a potential mental aspect of resting on your laurels and not continuing to improve after winning the prize.
Of course, great college players don’t always translate to great pro players. However, most college players have aspirations for a professional career. Marcus Mariota has already said that he’d rather win a Super Bowl or a national championship, and the facts show that he’s more likely to do the former and no less likely to win the latter if he doesn’t win the Heisman.
Mariota may also just realize, like all great players, that it’s a waste of time worrying about things that are out of his control and spending his time working on things that are in his control, like how hard he works.
When you focus on the process, you’re more likely to get all the results you want, and often more.
You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc