The Heisman Memorial Trophy award is a statue cast in bronze during a process called bronze medal casting, its finished product stands over a foot tall and weighs twenty-five pounds. The trophy figure is depicted dodging and straight-arm shoving an imaginary tackler on his way down the field to score a touchdown.
When the Club’s Trophy Committee, appointed by the Downtown Athletic Club, set out to envision an appropriate design for the trophy, its members overlooked the idea of the cup or bowl commonly associated with awards honoring sporting achievement. They wanted their DAC Trophy to have a distinctive look of their own as a visual symbol of the athletic talent they would seek to recognize each year. They finally agreed on the figure of a muscular football player running down the field looking for a touchdown. Once the design was finalized, they decided to erect the figure in bronze as a symbol of imperishability.
The committee then commissioned sculptor Frank Eliscu to design the trophy, which was modeled after Ed Smith, a New York University football player who had been the best player in college football in 1934. To earn the Perfect pose for her figure, Eliscu had developed a rough clay prototype; then, after the prototype had gained approval from the Club’s Trophy Committee, Jim Crowley, head coach of Fordham University, passed it around for inspection. Eliscu visited the soccer field on the Rose Hill campus, where Crowley had his players demonstrate the side step, forward drive, and strong arm of soccer while the sculptor manipulated the limbs of his prototype until he was satisfied that his pose effectively conveyed his actions: football firmly. tucked under left arm, stiff right arm extended, right leg extended forward in a lunge position. Satisfied with his development, the sculptor cast the figure in plaster. Receiving the nod at a 1935 dinner at the McAlpin Hotel, attended by the entire Notre Dame football team and their coach, who were astounded by the absolutely realistic 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 winner, Jay Berwanger, later in December of that same year, although at the time, the winner received it as the DAC Trophy. .
Heisman trophies have sold for six-figure amounts ranging from $228,000 in 2005 for sculptor Frank Eliscu’s original plaster cast for the trophy to just over $395,000 for former running back Bruce Smith’s 1941 trophy. University of Minnesota. In 1999, OJ Simpson’s 1968 Heisman Trophy was sold, as part of the $33 million settlement for his murder case, for $230,000. Not long after the 1994 manhunt involving his white Ford Bronco, his alma mater replica trophy was stolen from the University of Southern California Heritage Hall and has never been recovered despite extensive investigations. In 1999, Larry Kelley also sold his Heisman Trophy for $318,110 to liquidate his estate and have something to pass on to his younger relatives when he died. Not long after selling the trophy, he suffered 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, towering well above the standard crystal sports award.