When Ed Marinaro showed up at Vikings training camp as a rookie running back in 1972, it did not take long for his teammates to pin a nickname on him.
“They called me Avis,” he said.
That’s because as a senior at Cornell, Marinaro finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy. It was a time when Avis, making fun of its standing as the No. 2 car-rental company behind Hertz, was running commercials with the slogan, “We try harder.”
Marinaro said he couldn’t shake that nickname during his entire 1972-75 tenure in Minnesota. And it seems Marinaro, even though he went on to become a successful actor best known for his role of Officer Joe Coffey in the acclaimed television series “Hill Street Blues,” still can’t shake finishing second in voting for the iconic college football trophy.
“I’m like the answer to a trivia question,” Marinaro said from his home in Charleston, S.C. “People will still come up to me and say, ‘Hey, didn’t you come in second in the Heisman Trophy?’ And sometimes they’ll say, ‘Who won that year?’ ”
The winner was Auburn quarterback Pat Sullivan, who didn’t do much during a four-year NFL career and didn’t go on to be an actor.
Sure, there have been plenty of famous Heisman Trophy winners. And there have been a number of winners who struggled in the NFL but are still recognizable for having won the trophy that first was handed out in 1935. But there also have been plenty of stories surrounding Heisman runner-ups.
You want superstar quarterbacks? Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees Bob Griese (1966 Purdue), John Elway (1982 Stanford), Steve Young (1983 BYU) and Peyton Manning (1997 Tennessee) all finished second. In fact, Roger Staubach (Navy 1963) is the only NFL quarterback to have won the Heisman and be inducted into the Canton, Ohio, shrine.
“That wasn’t one of my favorite moments of college, for sure,” said Manning, still disappointed 25 years later at losing out.
You want coaches? After finishing second, running back Johnny Majors (Tennessee 1956) went on to win an NCAA championship with Pittsburgh in 1976 and then coached at his alma mater. And quarterback Josh Heupel (Oklahoma 2000) is now the head man at Tennessee.
How about some lawmakers? Runners-ups Byron “Whizzer” White (Colorado 1937) became a Supreme Court associate justice and Heath Shuler (1993 Tennessee) a U.S. congressman.
The 2022 Heisman winner will be revealed next Saturday night on ESPN. USC quarterback Caleb Williams is the favorite to win, but stay tuned also to see who the runner-up is and how his career unfolds.
The University of Minnesota has had one Heisman winner, running back Bruce Smith in 1941, and two runners-up. The late Paul Giel was a running back who finished second in 1953 and later became the school’s athletic director. Tom Brown, who was an offensive and defensive lineman and now lives in New Westminster, British Columbia, is the oldest living Heisman runner-up.
Asked in a phone interview if he has been forgotten, Brown, 85, said, “Well, you noticed me.”
Giel, a Winona native, and Brown, from Albert Lea, were both born in Minnesota. So was Larry Fitzgerald, a Minneapolis native who was second in the voting as a Pittsburgh wide receiver in 2003 before going on to star in the NFL.
The Vikings have had five Heisman runners-up play for them, all running backs. In addition to Marinaro, they’ve had Bob Ferguson (1961 Ohio State), Herschel Walker (1981 Georgia), Adrian Peterson (2004 Oklahoma) and Toby Gerhart (2009 Stanford). Walker won the Heisman in 1982.
Even the Twins have gotten into the act. Heisman runners-up Joe Theismann (1970 Notre Dame) and Anthony Davis (1974 USC) both were drafted by the Twins but decided instead to play pro football.
Finishing second didn’t stop Peterson, who played in the NFL from 2007-21, including 2007-16 with the Vikings. He is fifth in NFL history with 14,918 rushing yards but long has been ticked off at not winning the Heisman Trophy.
“I definitely feel like I should have been the first freshman to ever win,’’ he said last year on hall of fame tight end Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast. “I feel they robbed me.”
Despite rushing for an eye-popping 1,925 yards, Peterson lost out to USC quarterback Matt Leinert. He remains the highest-finishing true freshman in the voting, although two redshirt freshmen have hoisted the trophy — Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel in 2012 and Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston in 2013.
Peterson’s backup with the Vikings from 2010-13 was Gerhart. He also believes he should have won the Heisman, but in 2009 lost to Alabama running back Mark Ingram 1,304 total points to 1,276 in the closest vote ever.
“In the moment, I was just excited to be there, and was like, ‘Darn, it’s so close,’’’ Gerhart said. “But as the time has passed, it’s like, ‘Dang, I should have won it.’ I wish I would have won it. I was that close. A couple of votes the other way would have made the difference.”
An exclusive club
More than 50 years have passed since Marinaro finished second and he still believes he should have won. Marinaro set 17 NCAA records while playing in the Ivy League and rushed for 1,881 yards and 24 touchdowns in just nine games as a senior.
“If I had done what I had done at some Big Ten School, I would have been a slam dunk with the statistics I had and the records I set,” Marinaro said. “I felt I should have won. (The voters) didn’t take me seriously.”
In a close vote, Sullivan had 1,597 points to 1,445 for Marinaro. Marinaro did win the Maxwell Award, the second-most prestigious college trophy, before being drafted in the second round by the Vikings in 1972.
“I don’t know if winning the Heisman Trophy would have changed my life,” Marinaro said. “It’s a very prestigious award, and for the rest of your life you’re known as the Heisman Trophy winner. I don’t know if I would have pursued other stuff or tried to capitalize on having won the Heisman.”
Marinaro rushed for 1,176 yards with the Vikings, New York Jets and Seattle Seahawks from 1972-77 and doesn’t deny he wishes his NFL career would have turned out better. But he did make his mark as an actor.
“I would think most people could only wish they had a career like me,” he said. “They don’t know how many people try to be actors and never really make it.”
In 2018, Marinaro was filming the Hallmark movie “SnowComing” in British Columbia with Theismann, who also got into acting after his NFL career, and the two couldn’t help discussing something they had in common.
“Our conversation went there about both of us finishing second,” said Theismann, a quarterback who led Washington to a victory in Super Bowl XVII in January 1983. “Ed is like me. He’s not good at being a two.”
Theismann is perhaps linked to the trophy more closely than any player who didn’t win it. During his first three years at Notre Dame, his name was pronounced THEES-man but before his senior year of 1970, he was called into the office by Notre Dame sports information director Roger Valdiserri.
“He said he wanted me to change the pronunciation of my last name from THEES-man to rhyme with Heisman to help me get the trophy,” Theismann said. “So, after that there were all sorts of buttons and slogans and bumper stickers that came out. I think it was the first time there was a campaign to try to promote the Heisman Trophy for an individual.”
Despite all the “Theismann for Heisman” literature sent to voters, Theismann finished second to Stanford quarterback Jim Plunkett.
“I was disappointed,’’ Theismann said. “People are telling you that you have a real chance, and then all of a sudden it doesn’t happen.”
Theismann said he long has gotten over the disappointment. He joked about how many people now think he actually won the award.
“People come up to congratulate me,” he said. “I used to correct them. Now, I’ll just say, ‘Thank you.’ ”
The Almost Heisman House
Theismann also has discussed finishing second with Davis, a running back who was runner-up to Ohio State running back Archie Griffin in 1974. Griffin also took home the trophy in 1975 and remains the only two-time winner.
“About five years ago, I was doing an autograph show in Los Angeles,” Davis said. “And Joe said we should do a commercial with the runners-up just like they have the Nissan (Heisman House) commercials for winners. That would be great.”
Davis and Theismann also have the Twins in common. Thiesmann, who played high school baseball and seven games at third base for Notre Dame, went in the 39th round in 1971.
“I still have my Twins contract,” he said. “They offered me a $500 bonus.”
Davis was selected in the fourth round by the Twins in 1975 after having played three years of college baseball. While he opted instead to join the World Football League and later played briefly in the NFL, Davis did at one point talk to Twins star Rod Carew about his baseball draft status.
“I could have been teammates with Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, all those guys,” Davis said.
When it comes to talking about what might have been, Davis looks back at the 1974 Heisman race. The voting that year had mostly concluded before Davis scored four touchdowns and had 234 all-purpose yards in USC’s 55-24 win over Notre Dame on Nov. 30.
“The voting, in my opinion, was flawed but they did change the rule the next year to wait until all the games were played, and some people called it, ‘The Anthony Davis Rule,’ ” he said. “But as I look back, being a runner-up is no shame.”
Darren McFadden was a runner-up not once but twice. The Arkansas running back finished behind Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith in 2006 and Florida quarterback Tim Tebow in 2007. Other two-time runners-up have been Army running back Glenn Davis in 1944 and 1945 (although he did win it in 1946), North Carolina running back Charlie Justice in 1948 and 1949, and Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck in 2010 and 2011.
“My first one, I wasn’t disappointed because I had just come on the scene,” McFadden said. “But in my junior year (of 2007), I felt like did what I needed to win it.”
McFadden rushed for 1,830 yards in his final college season of 2007, and went on to have two 1,000-yard seasons while playing in the NFL from 2008-17. He doesn’t deny he thinks about his runner-up finishes when he sees a Nissan Heisman House commercial.
“I feel like I should be in one of them, but I don’t have any regrets,” said McFadden, who would be all for Theismann’s idea to have a commercial made with runners-up. “It’s just a part of football.”
When Brown came in second in 1960, there were no Heisman commercials — not even a telecast of the ceremony. It was so long ago that Brown, nicknamed the “Rock of Gibraltar,” played on both sides of the line even though he was just 5-foot-11, 225 pounds.
“For a lineman, that was OK,” Brown said of finishing second to Navy running back Joe Bellino.
Brown, who played at Minneapolis Central High School, turns 86 on Monday. He had a stroke in 2006 and uses a wheelchair.
Brown was drafted by the NFL’s Baltimore Colts and AFL’s New York Titans (now Jets), but because of an association with some coaches from his native Minnesota, he opted to play in the Canadian Football League. He starred at linebacker for the British Columbia Lions from 1961-67, and still lives near their home city of Vancouver.
Asked if his pro path would have been different had he won the Heisman, Brown said, “I might have gotten more money playing pro ball.”
Brown, who said he was mostly touted in 1960 for his play on defense, did win the Outland Trophy that goes to the nation’s best interior linemen. To this day, no lineman has won the Heisman. Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson (1997) remains the only defensive player to win the Heisman.
“That would be a record that would never be broken if you could have been the first,” Brown said.
‘That Extra Boost’
When it comes to being an answer to a trivia question, former Iowa quarterback Chuck Long likes to say he had that distinction for 24 years. In 1985, Long lost out to Auburn running back Bo Jackson 1,509 to 1,464 in what was then the closest vote in Heisman history. But then came the 2009 Heisman race.
“I used to be more well known than some of the guys who finished first,” Long said. “They used to say every year on the telecast, ‘And that’s not the closest vote ever. That still belongs to Bo Jackson and Chuck Long.’ But they don’t bring that up anymore. I lost my mojo.”
Long said there was “never any disappointment” in finishing second and he was “very proud just to be in the race.” But he does wonder at times how his life might have changed had he won the trophy. He pointed to being Oklahoma’s co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach when Sooners quarterback Jason White won the Heisman in 2003, beating out Fitzgerald..
“It’s such a powerful award,” said Long, who is CEO of the non-profit Iowa Sports Foundation and will be quarterbacks coach in the spring for the XFL’s Arlington (Texas) Renegades. “I’ve had a lot of doors open for me but I think a lot more doors would have been open. I coached Jason White, and he’s quite the businessman in the state of Oklahoma. He’s on just about every billboard in the state as part of an air-conditioning company (vice president of Air Comfort Solutions).”
White wasn’t drafted by an NFL team and never played in the league. Long was an NFL quarterback from 1986-94, although he never met expectations after being taken with the No. 12 overall pick by the Detroit Lions.
As for the guy who broke Long’s record for being the closest second-place finisher, Gerhart doesn’t deny that he sometimes wonders how his life might be different had he won the Heisman.
“You’re able to say forever that you’re a Heisman Trophy winner,” said Gerhart, who was mostly a NFL reserve from 2010-15 and is now director of sales enablement at Asurion, an insurance company for technological devices based in Nashville, Tenn. “Maybe you get an extra chance or an extra look at the next level. And there’s the Heisman House commercials and random stuff. There’s financial impacts to it. But I can claim I was the closest ever.”
Gerhart said there’s a “Stanford curse” since the Cardinal has had six runners-up since Plunkett won the trophy in 1970. Elway lost out in 1982. The next five came in a nine-year span, with Gerhart finishing second in 2009, Luck in 2010 and 2011, running back Christian McCaffrey in 2015 and running back Bryce Love in 2017.
Tennessee holds the record for most second-place finishes without a win. Running back Hank Lauricella was the runner-up in 1956 followed by Majors in 1956, Shuler in 1993 and Manning in 1997.
“I was disappointed for Tennessee,” Manning said of not winning. “Tennessee’s never had one. They’ve had four runners-up, so I wanted to win for my college. So it didn’t work out.”
Manning’s loss was close, with Woodson beating him out 1,815 points to 1,543. Shuler’s second-place finish wasn’t, with the Tennessee star quarterback losing 2,310 to 688 in 1993 to Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward in the fourth-most lopsided race ever.
“Let’s just say that I didn’t have an acceptance speech put together,” Shuler said of Ward being a heavy favorite entering the trophy announcement.
Shuler, though, said he was “proud” to represent his school on a national stage. Like Long, Shuler, selected No. 3 by Washington in 1994, had a disappointing career as an NFL quarterback. He was inconsistent and battled injuries and didn’t throw a regular-season pass after 1997.
Shuler eventually went into politics, and was elected to Congress. He represented North Carolina’s 11th district for three terms, serving from 2007-13.
“If you look at it, that’s a far more important job (than football), with the decisions that you make,” Shuler said. “I loved the job. … It was an honor to represent your community, your state. It was an incredible time. That was by far the best job you could ever have.”
But did Shuler get anything out of finishing second in voting for the Heisman?
“Well, maybe it’s the fact that you never give up,” he said. “You’re always working and you never quit at any point in life. You work as hard as you possibly can and maybe you get that extra boost. If you come in second, you’re going to do all you can to get to the top.”
