Nearly everybody who follows college football knows that the award for sports’ most outstanding player is the Heisman Trophy. Presented annually by the Downtown Athletic Club, the trophy was named in honor of John Heisman, the club director who died in 1936, just one year after the club inaugurated the award.
A lot of fans know that the first award in 1935 (called the Downtown Athletic Club Award until the following year) went to running back Jay Berwanger of the mighty University of Chicago Maroons. Some probably know that the Maroons — and not the Bears — were the original “Monsters of the Midway,” as the midway for the 1893 Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) runs right through the southside campus.