Forgive Ohio State tailback Ezekiel Elliott if his mind went blank upon learning he was one of six finalists for the Sullivan Award, which will be handed out on Sunday.
The what?
Like most of his millennial peers, Elliott had no clue about the 85-year-old award, given each year to the nation’s most outstanding amateur athlete. Former winners include sprinter Carl Lewis, golfer Bobby Jones and skater Michelle Kwan.
Knowing of the Sullivan Award is a generational thing, with the dividing line running somewhere between Baby Boomers and Generation X. The Amateur Athletic Union, which established the award in 1930, touts the Sullivan as the “Oscar of sports awards”, which at one time it was, even outsizing the Heisman Trophy, which debuted in 1935.