John Heisman: The man behind the famous trophy

These days, John Heisman isn't remembered for much beyond his name on an iconic trophy - a trophy he didn't approve of in the first place.

Heisman the man is more interesting than Heisman the trophy, which will be awarded Saturday for the 75th time. He stands as one of the University of Pennsylvania's great contributions to football, explaining why a replica Heisman Trophy was donated to Penn this year and now stands at Franklin Field.

Heisman, who died in 1936, was a driving force behind introducing the forward pass to college football. He was way ahead of the game in using laterals, reverses, and pulling guards on sweeps. He was the first to ask his quarterback to yell "Hup" to signal a snap. He also coached the biggest blowout in the history of the sport: Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0. Heisman allegedly ran it up to prove that the system for determining a national champion was deeply flawed.

Born in 1869, Heisman was one of the first transfers in college football, moving in 1890 from Brown to Penn after two seasons to play at a more organized program - but mostly to get a law degree, which Brown didn't offer.

When Heisman's eyes went bad just before graduation - legend has strayed from the truth about what caused this - he realized he couldn't practice law. He turned to coaching football and became a huge success. He also predated many modern coaches in willingness to stay on the move. Among his eight head coaching stints were Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Auburn. He won a national title at Georgia Tech in 1917, going undefeated four times at the school. His next stop? Back to his alma mater, not quite as successfully. Heisman coached at Franklin Field for three seasons, from 1920 to '23, before moving on to Washington and Jefferson.

"Heisman was a demanding perfectionist and peerless strategist," wrote Jack Wilkinson, author of Georgia Tech Football Vault. "His teams used the Heisman shift, or jump shift, the forerunner to the T and I formations. His Tech teams didn't huddle. Instead, the quarterback shouted plays or called a series of plays. Or sometimes, Heisman illegally hand-signaled plays from the sideline."

For all his sophisticated strategies, Heisman allegedly was the first to come up with the hidden-ball trick, telling his quarterback at Auburn to slip the pigskin under his jersey and pretend to tie his shoelaces. Vanderbilt fell for it.