Revenge Of The Jocks Costs Gerhart Heisman

Toby Gerhart has no one to blame but himself for why he did not win the Heisman Trophy.

Had he gone to a college football powerhouse rather than a rebuilding Pac 10 program coming out of high school, maybe he would be handling some hardware.  Gerhart, who rushed for 1,736 yards and 26 rushing touchdowns, lost out to Alabama's Mark Ingram who rushed for 149 fewer yards and 8 fewer total touchdowns.


Why?  Because the Alabama brand of football is more highly thought of than Stanford's football program. 


Yet, a part of me is not completely surprised by Gerhart's snub, because it represents the train of thought of a good chunk of American decision makers.

How many people get passed over for jobs because their collegiate degree is not from Northwestern, Harvard, Princeton or ... even Stanford.

Ingram was the best offensive player on the nation's top-ranked team.  Colt McCoy got a good number of Heisman votes, so for the second straight season, Texas fans are up in arms over their signal caller coming up short in the Heisman race.  Longhorns fans need to get their heads on straight.  McCoy saw his passing yards, completion percentage, yards per completion, passer rating and touchdown passes go down, while his interceptions went up.


Yet, he was deserving of a Heisman trophy?  He would not have been had he been quarterbacking Texas Christian.

Division I college football is the only sport where the team name is valued as much as a team's performance.  Imagine how you would feel as a sports fan if that happened at every other level.

Derek Jeter would win the American League Most Valuable Player award every year, while the Yankees and Red Sox alternated years in which they won World Series titles.  Duke's men's college basketball team would flash forward to the national title game awaiting 64 teams to battle for a spot to take on a well-rested Blue Devils team at the end of March Madness.

The NFL would give the Cowboys a bye week during the month of December as the team geared up for a Super Bowl run.  Kobe's Lakers and Ewing's LeBron's D'Antoni's Knicks would square off in the NBA Finals every year just so David Stern could line his pockets with the cash made from the television markets alone.

And unless you were a fan of each of those squads, sports would be boring and predictable.  Like the world of politics, but with muscles.


Maybe this is the sports world's way of sticking it to the man.  Still, Gerhart earned the award that Ingram ended up taking home.  At least Gerhart will always have that Stanford degree to fall back on.