As I watched the Heisman presentation last weekend it brought back memories of a great story about the first Heisman winner and his team. In 1935 Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago won the first award. At that time U of Chicago was a football power. They were a member of the Western Conference, which evolved into the Big 10. In 1939 they dropped football. I did not know that they had ever reinstated the sport so I was very surprised when my son, Jim, called me after the clinic the Husker staff hosts in conjunction with the spring game. He was sitting in the clinic and saw the name tag on a coach sitting near him. It listed his school as University of Chicago so Jim mentioned Jay Berwanger and said that he didn't know they were playing football again. Thirty years after dropping football they reinstated it as a DIII team. The coach told Jim that recently they had invited Berwanger and his team back for some kind of reunion or award ceremony. Two of the starters were deceased but the other nine were there. They lined up in their single wing formation, turned and saluted the two vacant spots, and then ran a play. We figured they were probably in their mid 80's at the time.

And now they're being signed as free agents for next season by the Detroit Lions...

As soon as they signed Las Vegas changed the odds of Detroit winning the Super Bowl from one trillion to one down to one billion to one.