Nor will tourists in Times Square encounter a 10-story billboard touting Locker as Heisman-worthy, as they did when Oregon promoted Joey Harrington for the 2001 award.
Washington is trying a different tactic. Instead of distributing tacky souvenirs to inform the masses about Jake Locker, it is distributing Locker himself. On Tuesday, he wrapped up a whirlwind trip to the East Coast that included a day’s worth of radio and TV interviews at the ESPN studios in Connecticut, a luncheon with New York City media and a visit to the offices of Sports Illustrated.
And how did it go? Well, put it this way: Locker spent two full days talking to reporters and apparently said nothing that’ll require an apology. I’m not sure I could talk to those same reporters for two hours without attempting a dumb joke immediately condemned in the blogosphere.
But Locker was as unflappable during the media blitz in New York as he’s been picking up a defensive blitz in Husky Stadium. He was polite, amiable and less inclined to stir up controversy than an ice-cream vendor parked outside an elementary school.
A couple of excerpts from Locker’s Monday-morning chat-room session on ESPN.com:
“Jake, how fast are you?”
Locker: “I haven’t timed myself recently, so I can’t get you an accurate number.”
“Jake, how did you pick the number 10? My son would like to know.”
Locker: “I always wore No. 5, and then I was given No. 10 my first year in high school, and didn’t really change it.”
OK, so Locker might have his work cut out for him should he wish to emulate Charles Barkley’s path after retiring from competitive sports. But at least those who participated in the ESPN.com chat now realize that Locker wears No. 10.
A Heisman Trophy is won primarily on the field. For those who find something distasteful about a school organizing the pursuit of an individual award, team success is imperative. (The past 10 Heisman Trophy winners have led their teams to the BCS title game. And not since Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung, in 1956, has a Heisman Trophy recipient represented a team with a losing record.)
Statistics also matter. Whether too much emphasis is placed on stats is open to debate, but as somebody who votes for the award, I am more comfortable crunching numbers than I am marveling over arbitrarily assembled video clips. (Although spectacular highlights can’t hurt.)
But what matters to a Heisman campaign, before anything else, is for a candidate to be recognized. In a sense, the Heisman race mirrors the national championship race: It’s commonplace to make up ground in the polls, but if a team is not mentioned in the original poll, it’s impossible to make up enough ground to finish first.
Huskies athletic director Scott Woodward, who appreciates how Locker’s mere Heisman candidacy can bring valuable exposure to both the school and its football program, has steered the team’s star player into the conversation.
As for the more gaudy publicity gambits that have distinguished some Heisman campaigns, Woodward is wise to avoid them. For one, they’re expensive. (That Nike-sponsored billboard of Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington in Times Square cost $50,000.) For two, they don’t work. (Harrington finished fourth in 2001, behind quarterbacks Eric Crouch of Nebraska, Rex Grossman of Florida and Ken Dorsey of Miami.)
More recently, some voters last year were on a mailing list for life-size posters of all-purpose Clemson back C.J. Spiller. The poster asked: “How do you measure up to a Heisman Trophy candidate?”
The voters didn’t measure Spiller the way Clemson wanted. He wasn’t even among the finalists invited to the trophy ceremony in New York.
On the other hand, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford won the 2008 Heisman Trophy after – or maybe despite – his school’s distribution of hand-held fans to 800 members of the College Football Writers Association of America. “Fan-tastic Sam,” the souvenir was dubbed.
“I really regret that we did it, because it wasn’t necessary and wasn’t in line with our philosophy,” Sooners sports information director Kenny Mossman told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review last year. “I was disappointed in myself that we went that route, and we deserved whatever criticism we received.”
Washington can’t be criticized for taking its fifth-year senior quarterback to the East Coast, where reporters learned that Locker hasn’t allowed his status as the presumptive first overall NFL draft choice to deny him the history degree that he plans on earning in the fall.
Locker managed to plant one foot in the Heisman Trophy door without planting another in his mouth. Whether he returns to New York in December depends on some combination of skill, luck and the superior effort of the team that surrounds him.
If he wins, I can think of worse places for a purple-and-gold billboard, 10 stories high, than Times Square.
john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com
