Football

Five Major College Football Awards Named After Ivies

Five of the most prominent NCAA football posteason accolades are named after Ivy League alumni—the most of any NCAA Division I conference. 
 
The prestigious honors named after Ivy alums include the Heisman Memorial Trophy (John Heisman, Brown & Penn), Chuck Bednarik Award (Chuck Bednarik, Penn), Outland Trophy (John Outland, Penn), Walter Camp Award (Walter Camp, Yale) and William V. Campbell Trophy (Bill Cambell, Columbia).
 
HEISMAN TROPHY
Named for John Heisman, this award is given annually to the player who best combines great ability with diligence, perseverance and hard work. Heisman first attended Brown and then finished his playing career at Penn, graduating in 1891. He went on to coach the Quakers from 1920-22, before eventually serving as director of the Downtown Athletic Club, the organization that presents the trophy. The award was named after Heisman following his death in 1936. Three Ivies have earned the trophy, including Yale’s Larry Kelley (1936), Yale’s Clint Frank (1937) and Princeton’s Dick Kazmaier (1951).
CHUCK BEDNARIK AWARD
The Bednarik Award is given annually to the best defensive player in the nation as selected by the Maxwell Football Club. Chuck “Concrete Charlie” Bednarik was a star football player in Philadelphia from 1945-1962, first for Penn and then for the Philadelphia Eagles.
 
After a career with the Quakers in which he was named All-America three times and received the Maxwell Award and finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1948, he was taken No. 1 overall in the 1949 NFL Draft, the first of seven Ivies in the history of the conference to be selected first overall in a professional league.
 
Bednarik finished his career as a two-time Super Bowl winner (1949, 1960), an eight-time Pro Bowler and a 10-time first-team All-Pro, before receiving NFL 1950s All-Decade Team and NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time team honors. He was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Famer in 1967.
 
Bednarik was known as a “60-minute man” both in college and the pros, where he played center and linebacker. That did not affect his durability, as he only missed three games in his 14 NFL seasons.
OUTLAND TROPHY
The Outland Trophy is handed out each year by the Football Writers Association of America to the best interior lineman in the nation. John Outland played at Penn from 1897-99, twice earning All-America honors.
 
In fact, Outland is one of only a few players to receive All-America nods at two positions, first as a tackle and then as a halfback. He long felt that tackles and guards deserved greater recognition and came up with the Outland Trophy as a way to honor the men in the trenches. Outland was selected into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 2001.
 
Upon graduation from Penn, Outland received his medical degree and coached the game, before becoming a full-time surgeon in 1907. He lived in Kansas and made it a point to visit patients in rural areas, the first doctor in the Kansas City area to do so. He also served as a major in the US Army Medical Corps during World War I.
WALTER CAMP AWARD
The Walter Camp award, named after the “Father of American Football,” is given to the player of the year as decided by a group of FBS head coaches and sports information directors.
 
Walter Camp played for Yale from 1876-1880 and coached the Bulldogs from 1888-1892. As a player and a coach, he served on various rules committees that helped shape the game, and in fact was instrumental in creating the line of scrimmage, the snap from the center to the quarterback, the system of downs, the scoring and the offensive arrangement of a seven-man line and a four-man backfield. He also is credited with cutting the number of players on the field from 15 to 11 and adding measuring lines to the field.
 
Camp, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, won three national championships with Yale, in 1888, 1891 and 1892. He went on to coach Stanford and finished his career with a record of 79-5-3, for a winning percentage of .925. Away from football, Camp worked as an advisor for the United States military during World War 1, developing a program to help Army and Navy servicemen become more physically fit.
WILLIAM V. CAMPBELL TROPHY
This award, called by some the “Academic Heisman,” is named after former Columbia player and coach Bill Campbell. It is given by the National Football Foundation annually to the player with the best combination of academics, community service and on-field performance.
 
Campbell played football at Columbia from 1959-61, serving as team captain and earning All-Ivy honors while leading the team to the Ivy League title as a senior. After earning his degree in economics and then master’s degree in education (also from Columbia), he returned to the sport he loved, first as an assistant coach at Boston College and then as head coach of his alma mater, serving in that role from 1974-79.
 
Campbell then went into the corporate world and rose up the ranks, earning the reputation as the “coach of Silicon Valley.” Through the course of his career, he mentored, among others, Steve Jobs at Apple, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Marissa Mayer at Yahoo and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook. He remained close to his alma mater, and due to his tremendous leadership and passion for Columbia Athletics the university dedicated the Campbell Sports Center in his honor in October of 2013.
Throughout the 2019 season, the Ivy League will celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football (CFB150) with 150 consecutive days of original content illustrating the League’s storied tradition, modern success and continued impact on the game. Follow @IvyLeague or visit ivylg.co/Ivy150 for daily content updates through regional rivalry weekend on Saturday, Nov. 23.