Visitors to Gary Beban’s home never knew where they might find his Heisman Trophy, only that it would never be prominently displayed or featured behind glass. Once it did humble duty as a doorstop in his study. On other occasions, he would use it as a clothes hanger when perched on his desk or his shelf.
The last few years, the trophy has been nestled among other family mementos in his son Paul’s bedroom. Gary wanted his son to take the trophy in part because his apartment in the Financial District of Manhattan is almost within view of Ellis Island, where their forebears first entered the country as immigrants from Italy and Croatia.