In his book
Principles of Football, Heisman described his coaching strategy: "The coach should be masterful and commanding, even dictatorial. He has no time to say 'please' or 'mister'. At times he must be severe, arbitrary, and little short of a
czar." Heisman always used a
megaphone at practice. "Heisman's voice was deep, his diction perfect, his tone biting."
Early coaching career: Oberlin and Buchtel Heisman first coached at Oberlin College. He used the
double pass, from tackle to
halfback, and moved his
quarterback to the
safety position on
defense. Influenced by
Yale and
Pudge Heffelfinger, Heisman implemented the now illegal "
flying wedge"
formation. It involved seven players arranged as a "V" to protect the ball carrier. Heisman was also likely influenced by Heffelfinger to
pull guards on
end runs. On his
1892 team, Heisman's
trainer was Clarence Hemingway, the father of author
Ernest Hemingway The team beat
Ohio State twice, and considered itself undefeated at the end of the season. In 1893, Heisman became the football and baseball coach at Buchtel College. A disappointing baseball season was made up for by a 5–2
football season. It was then customary for the center to begin a
play by rolling or kicking the ball backwards, but this proved difficult for Buchtel's unusually tall quarterback Harry Clark. Under Heisman, the center began tossing the ball to Clark, a practice that eventually evolved into the
snap. The first school to officially defeat Heisman was
Case School of Applied Science, known today as
Case Western Reserve. Buchtel won
a single game against
Ohio State at the
Ohio State Fair before Heisman returned to Oberlin in
1894, posting a 4–3–1 record, including losses to
Michigan and undefeated
Penn State. The Penn State game ended with a
fair catch and
free kick, which resulted in a
field goal for Penn State. Referees were confused whether teams could kick a field goal or had to
punt on a free kick, and the game ended 6–4 in favor of Oberlin, but Walter Camp over-ruled the game officials, allowing Penn State its extra free kick and the victory 9–6.
Auburn After his two years at Oberlin and possibly due to the economic
Panic of 1893, Heisman invested his savings and began working at a tomato farm in
Marshall, Texas. It was hard work in the heat and Heisman was losing money. He was contacted by
Walter Riggs, then the manager of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (
Auburn University)
football team. Auburn was looking for a football coach, and Heisman was suggested to Riggs by his former player at Oberlin,
Penn's then-captain
Carl S. Williams. He began his use of a type of delayed buck play where an end took a
hand-off, then handed the ball to the halfback on the opposite side, who
rushed up the middle. As a coach, Heisman "railed and snorted in practice, imploring players to do their all for God, country, Auburn, and Heisman. Before each game he made squadmen take a nonshirk, nonflinch oath." Due to his fondness for Shakespeare, he would sometimes use a British accent at practice. While it was then illegal to coach from the sidelines during a game, Heisman would sometimes use secret signals with a bottle or a handkerchief to communicate with his team. However, Vanderbilt answered by kicking a field goal and won 9–6, making it the first game of Southern football decided by a field goal. In the
rivalry game with
Georgia, Auburn won 16–6. Georgia coach Pop Warner copied the hidden ball trick, and in 1903, his
Carlisle team famously used it to defeat
Harvard. Earlier in the
1895 season, Heisman witnessed
one of the first illegal forward passes when
Georgia faced
North Carolina in
Atlanta. Georgia was about to block a punt when UNC's
Joel Whitaker tossed the ball out of desperation, and
George Stephens caught the pass and ran 70 yards for a touchdown. Later, Heisman became one of the main proponents of making the forward pass legal. Lineman
Marvin "Babe" Pearce had transferred to Auburn from
Alabama, and Reynolds Tichenor was captain of the
1896 Auburn team, which beat
Georgia Tech 45–0. Auburn players greased the train tracks the night before the game. Georgia Tech's train did not stop until
Loachapoka, and the Georgia Tech players had to walk the 5 miles back to Auburn. This began a tradition of students parading through the streets in their pajamas, known as the "
Wreck Tech Pajama Parade". Auburn finished the season by losing 12–6 to Pop Warner's
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion
Georgia team, which was led by quarterback
Richard Von Albade Gammon. Auburn received its first national publicity when Heisman was able to convince ''
Harper's Weekly'' to publish the 1896 team's photo. Another was a 14–4 defeat of
Nashville, which featured
Bradley Walker. Tichenor had transferred to
Georgia. Gammon moved to
fullback and died in the game against
Virginia. Auburn finished the 1897 football season $700 in debt, and in response, Heisman took on the role of a theater producer and staged the
comedic play David Garrick. Having made enough money for another football season, the
1898 team won two out of three games, with its loss coming against undefeated
North Carolina. The 1899 team, which Heisman considered his best while at Auburn, was led by fullback
Arthur Feagin. As Heisman recalled, "I do not think I have ever seen so fast a team as that was." Auburn was leading
Georgia by a score of 11–6 when the game was called due to darkness, lighting not being available at that time, resulting in an official scoreless tie. Heisman fitted his linemen with straps and handles under their belts so that the other linemen could hold onto them and prevent the opposing team from breaking through the line. The umpire W. L. Taylor had to cut them. A report of the game says "Feagin is a player of exceptional ability, and runs with such force that some ground belongs to him on every attempt." Heisman left Auburn after the 1899 season, and wrote a farewell letter with "tears in my eyes, and tears in my voice; tears even in the trembling of my hand". "You will not feel hard toward me; you will forgive me, you will not forget me? Let me ask to retain your friendship. Can a man be associated for five successive seasons with Grand Old Auburn, toiling for her, befriended by her, striving with her, and yet not love her?" He still has the highest winning percentage in school history in both football and baseball. Again Walter Riggs, who moved on from Auburn to coach and manage at Clemson, was instrumental in the hiring. Riggs started an association to help pay Heisman's salary, which was $1,800 per year, and raised $415.11. Heisman coached baseball from 1901 to 1903, posting a 28–6–1 record. Under Heisman,
pitcher Vedder Sitton was considered "one of the best twirlers in the country" and one of "the best pitchers that Clemson ever had". By the time of his hiring in 1900, Heisman was "the undisputed master of Southern football". Heisman later said that his approach at Clemson was "radically different from anything on earth". The 1900 season had "the rise of Clemson from a little school whose football teams had never been heard of before, to become a football machine of the very first power." Clemson finished the season undefeated at 6–0, and beat
Davidson on opening day by a 64–0 score, then the largest ever made in the South. Clemson then beat
Wofford 21–0, agreeing that every point scored after the first four touchdowns did not count, and
South Carolina 51–0. The team also beat
Georgia,
VPI, and
Alabama. Clemson beat Georgia 39–5, and Clemson players were pelted with coal from the nearby dorms. Stars for the Clemson team included captain and tackle Norman Walker, end
Jim Lynah, and halfback
Buster Hunter. Clemson beat
Georgia and lost to
VPI 17–11, with Carpenter starring for VPI. The season closed with a defeat of
North Carolina. Lynah later transferred to Cornell and played for Pop Warner. Heisman was described as "a master of taking advantage of the surprise element." The day before the game against
Georgia Tech, Heisman sent in substitutes to Atlanta, who checked into a hotel, and partied until dawn. The next day, the varsity team was well rested and prepared, while Georgia Tech was fooled and expected an easy win. Clemson won that game 44–5. In a 28–0 defeat of
Furman, an oak tree was on the field, and Heisman called for a
lateral pass using the tree as an extra blocker. The 1902 team went 6–1. Several fights broke out that day. As one writer put it: "The Carolina fans that week were carrying around a poster with the image of a tiger with a gamecock standing on top of it, holding the tiger's tail as if he was steering the tiger". Another brawl broke out before both sides agreed to burn the poster in an effort to defuse tensions. In the aftermath, the rivalry was suspended until 1909. The last game of the season, Clemson beat
Tennessee 11–0 in the snow, in a game during which Tennessee's
Toots Douglas launched a 109-yard punt (the field length was 110 yards in those days). The 1903 team went 4–1–1, and opened the season by beating
Georgia 29–0. The next week, Clemson played Georgia's
rival Georgia Tech. To inspire Clemson, Georgia offered a bushel of apples for every point it scored after the 29th. The team then beat
North Carolina A&M, lost to
North Carolina, and beat Davidson. While both teams can therefore be listed as champion, Heisman named Cumberland champion. In 1902 and 1903, several Clemson players made the
All-Southern team, an
all-star team of players from the South selected by several writers after the season, analogous to
All-America teams. They included ends Vedder Sitton and
Hope Sadler, quarterback
Johnny Maxwell, and fullback
Jock Hanvey. Fuzzy Woodruff relates Heisman's role in selecting All-Southern teams: "The first selections that had any pretense of being backed by a judicial consideration were made by W.Reynolds Tichenor...The next selections were made by John W. Heisman, who was as good a judge of football men as the country ever produced."
Georgia Tech After the 73–0 defeat by Clemson, Georgia Tech approached Heisman and was able to hire him as a coach and an athletic director. A banner proclaiming "Tech Gets Heisman for 1904" was strung across Atlanta's
Piedmont Park. He coached Georgia Tech for the longest tenure of his career, 16years.
Baseball and basketball At Georgia Tech, Heisman coached
baseball and
basketball in addition to football. The
1906 Georgia Tech baseball team was his best, posting a 23–3 record. Star players in 1906 included captain and
outfielder Chip Robert,
shortstop Tommy McMillan, and pitchers
Ed Lafitte and
Craig Day. In 1907, Lafitte posted 19
strikeouts in 10
innings against rival
Georgia. In 1908, Heisman was also Georgia Tech's first basketball coach. For many years after his death, from 1938 to 1956, Georgia Tech played basketball in the Heisman Gym. In 1904, Heisman was an official in an Atlanta indoor baseball league. In 1908, Heisman became the president of the Atlanta Crackers, a
minor league baseball team. The Atlanta Crackers captured the 1909
Southern Association title. Heisman also became the athletic director of the
Atlanta Athletic Club in 1908, its
golf course having been built in 1904.
Football Heisman never had a losing season coaching Georgia Tech football, including three undefeated campaigns and a 32-game undefeated streak. At some time during his tenure at Georgia Tech, he started the practice of posting downs and yardage on the scoreboard. Heisman's
first football season at Georgia Tech was an 8–1–1 record, the first winning season for Georgia Tech since
1893 (the
1901 team was blacklisted). One source relates: "The real feature of the season was the marvelous advance made by the Georgia School of Technology." Georgia Tech posted victories over
Georgia,
Tennessee,
Florida State,
University of Florida (at Lake City), and
Cumberland, and a tie with Heisman's previous employer,
Clemson. The team suffered just one loss, to
Auburn. Tackle
Lob Brown and halfback
Billy Wilson were selected All-Southern. The same season,
Dan McGugin was hired by
Vanderbilt and
Mike Donahue by Auburn. Vanderbilt and Auburn would dominate the SIAA until 1916, when Heisman won his first official title with Georgia Tech. The
1905 Georgia Tech team, the first to be called "Yellow Jackets", went 6–0–1 and Heisman gained a reputation as a coaching "wizard". Heisman also drew much acclaim as a sportswriter, and was regularly published in the sports section of the
Atlanta Constitution, and later in
Collier's Weekly. After the bloody
1905 football season—the
Chicago Tribune reported 18 players had been killed and 159 seriously injured, United States president
Theodore Roosevelt intervened and demanded the rules be reformed to make the sport safer. The rules committee then legalized the forward pass, for which Heisman was instrumental, enlisting the support of
Henry L. Williams and committee members
John Bell and
Paul Dashiell. Heisman believed that a forward pass would improve the game by allowing a more open style of play, thus discouraging mass attack tactics and the flying wedge formation. The rule changes came in 1906, three years after Heisman began actively lobbying for that decision. Before the
1910 season, Heisman convinced the rules committee to change football from a game of two halves to four quarters, again for safety. Despite lobbying for these rule changes, Heisman's teams from 1906 to 1914 continued to post winning records, but with multiple losses each season, including a loss to Auburn each season but 1906. The
1906 Georgia Tech team beat
Auburn for the first time, and in a loss to
Sewanee first used Heisman's
jump shift offense, which became known as the Heisman shift. In the jump shift, all but the center may
shift into various formations, with a jump before the snap. A play started with only the center on the
line of scrimmage. The
backfield would be in a vertical line, as if in an
I-formation with an extra halfback, or a giant T. After the shift, a split second elapsed, and then the ball was snapped. In one common instance of the jump shift, the line shifted to put the center between guard and tackle. The three
backs nearest the line of scrimmage would shift all to one side, and the center snapped it to the tailback. The
1907 team played its games at
Ponce de Leon Park, where the Atlanta Crackers also played.
"Twenty Percent" Davis, considered 20% of the team's worth, was selected All-Southern. Chip Robert was captain of the
1908 team, which went 6–3, including a 44–0 blowout loss to
Auburn in which
Lew Hardage returned a kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown. Davis again was All-Southern. Georgia attacked Georgia Tech's recruitment tactics in football. Georgia alumni incited an SIAA investigation, claiming that Georgia Tech had created a fraudulent scholarship fund. Tackle
Pat Patterson was selected All-Southern. The
1911 team featured future head coach
William Alexander as a reserve quarterback. Pat Patterson was team captain and selected All-Southern. The team played
Alabama to a scoreless tie, after which Heisman said he had never seen a player "so thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of football as
Hargrove Van de Graaff." The
1912 team opened the season by playing the Army's 11th Cavalry regiment to a scoreless tie. The team also lost to
Sewanee, and quarterback
Alf McDonald was selected All-Southern. The team moved to
Grant Field from Ponce de Leon Park by
1913, and lost its first game there to
Georgia 14–0. The season's toughest win came against
Florida, 13–3, after Florida was up 3–0 at the half. Heisman said his opponents played the best football he had seen a Florida squad play. The independent
1914 team was captained by halfback
Wooch Fielder and went 6–2. The team beat
Mercer 105–0 and the next week had a 13–0 upset loss to
Alabama. During the span of
1915 to
1918, Georgia Tech posted a 30–1–2 record, outscored opponents 1611–93, and claimed four straight SIAA titles. Georgia center
John G. Henderson headed a group of three men, one behind the other, with his hands upon the shoulders of the one in front, to counter Heisman's jump shift. Halfback
Everett Strupper joined the team in 1915 and was partially
deaf. He called the signals instead of the quarterback. When Strupper tried out for the team, he noticed that the quarterback shouted the signals every time he was to carry the ball. Realizing that the loud signals would be a tip-off to the opposition, Strupper told Heisman: "Coach, those loud signals are absolutely unnecessary. You see when sickness in my kid days brought on this deafness my folks gave me the best instructors obtainable to teach me
lip-reading." Heisman recalled how Strupper overcame his deafness: "He couldn't hear anything but a regular shout, but he could read your lips like a flash. No lad who ever stepped on a football field had keener eyes than Everett had. The enemy found this out the minute he began looking for openings through which to run the ball." Fielder and guard
Bob Lang made the composite All-Southern team, and Senter, quarterback
Froggie Morrison, and Strupper were selected All-Southern by some writer. The team was immediately dubbed the greatest in Georgia Tech's history up to that point. However, the team continued to improve over the next two seasons. Sportswriter
Morgan Blake called Strupper, "probably the greatest running half-back the South has known." The
1916 team went 8–0–1, captured the team's first official SIAA title, and was the first to vault Georgia Tech football to national prominence. Strupper, Lang, fullback
Tommy Spence, tackle
Walker Carpenter, and center
Pup Phillips were all selected All-Southern. Only one newspaper in all of the South was said to have neglected to have Strupper on its All-Southern team. Phillips was the first Georgia Tech center selected All-Southern, and made Walter Camp's third-team All-American. Spence got Camp's honorable mention. Without throwing a single forward pass, Georgia Tech defeated the
Cumberland College Bulldogs,
222–0, in the most one-sided college football game ever played. Strupper led the scoring with six touchdowns. Up 126–0 at halftime, Heisman reportedly told his players, "You're doing all right, team, we're ahead, but you just can't tell what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves. They may spring a surprise. Be alert, men! Hit 'em clean, but hit 'em hard!" However, even Heisman relented, and shortened the quarters in the second half to 12 minutes each instead of 15. and against the sportswriters who he felt were too focused on numbers, such as those who picked Vanderbilt as champion the previous season. In 1917, the backfield of
Joe Guyon,
Al Hill,
Judy Harlan, and Strupper helped propel Heisman to his finest success. Georgia Tech posted a 9–0 record and a national championship, the first for a Southern team. For many years, it was considered the finest team the South ever produced. Sportswriter
Frank G. Menke selected Strupper and team captain Carpenter for his All-America team; the first two players from the
Deep South ever selected first-team All-American. Joe Guyon was a
Chippewa Indian, who had transferred from
Carlisle, and whose brother Charles "Wahoo" Guyon was Heisman's assistant coach on the team. His first carry for Georgia Tech was a 75-yard touchdown against
Wake Forest. The 1917 Georgia Tech team outscored opponents 491–17 and beat
Penn 41–0. Historian Bernie McCarty called it "Strupper's finest hour, coming through against powerful Penn in the contest that shocked the
East." Pop Warner's undefeated
Pittsburgh team beat Penn just 14–6. Georgia Tech's 83–0 victory over
Vanderbilt is the worst loss in Vanderbilt history, and the 63–0 defeat of
Washington and Lee was the worst loss in W&L history at the time.
Auburn, the SIAA's second place team, was beaten 68–7. Institute faculty succeeded in preventing a postseason national championship game with Pittsburgh. In the next season of 1918, after losing several players to
World War I, Georgia Tech lost a lopsided game to
Pittsburgh 32–0. Sportswriter
Francis J. Powers wrote: Heisman cut back on his expanded duties in 1918, and only coached football between September 1 and December 15.
Buck Flowers, a small back in his first year on the team, had transferred from
Davidson a year before, where he had starred in a game against Georgia Tech. Flowers had grown to weigh 150 pounds and was a backup until Heisman discovered his ability as an open-field runner on
punt returns. Also in 1918, center
Bum Day became the first player from the South selected for Walter Camp's first-team All-America, historically loaded with college players from
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other northeastern colleges. Flowers and tackle
Bill Fincher made Camp's second team. Guyon made Menke's first team All-America as a tackle. The
1919 team was beaten by
Pittsburgh and
Washington and Lee, and in the final game
Auburn gave Georgia Tech its first loss to an SIAA school in 5 years (since
Auburn in 1914). Flowers, Harlan, Fincher, Phillips,
Dummy Lebey,
Al Staton, and
Shorty Guill were All-Southern. Heisman left Atlanta after the season, and William Alexander was hired as his successor.
Penn and Washington & Jefferson Heisman went back to
Penn for three seasons from 1920 to 1922. Most notable perhaps is the
9–7 loss to
Alabama in 1922, the Crimson Tide's first major intersectional victory. In 1923, Heisman coached the
Washington and Jefferson Presidents, which beat the previously undefeated
West Virginia Mountaineers.
Rice Following the season at Washington and Jefferson College, Heisman ended his coaching career with four seasons at
Rice. In 1924, after being selected by the Committee on Outdoor Sports, he took over the job as Rice University's first full-time head
football coach and athletic director, succeeding
Phillip Arbuckle. Rice was his last coaching job before he retired in 1927 to lead the
Downtown Athletic Club in
Manhattan, New York. In 1935, the Downtown Athletic Club began awarding a Downtown Athletic Club trophy for the best football player east of the
Mississippi River. ==Personal life==