John Heisman, the Coach Who Invented the Forward Pass

Carter Field in Titusville, Pennsylvania, sits near the boyhood home of John William Heisman, the football coach whose name is now synonymous with excellence in the college game. Every year the Heisman Memorial Trophy goes to the nation's outstanding college football player. What fewer people know is what Heisman actually did to earn that kind of permanence.

Heisman grew up here in Titusville, where his father ran an oil cooperage during the Pennsylvania oil boom. He played football near this very field before going on to a coaching career that spanned nearly forty years and multiple universities.

As a coach, Heisman pushed to legalize the forward pass, transforming football from a grinding running game into something recognizably modern. He is credited with introducing the center snap, the scoreboard, and the division of games into quarters. He fought persistently for player safety through equipment improvements and rule revisions, and he helped found the American Football Coaches Association. The award that now bears his name was first given in nineteen thirty-five and was renamed in his honor in nineteen thirty-six, the year he died.