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Going by the Book |
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Heisman Memories |
Riska writes about 25 years running the Heisman event
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
My first football heroes were West Point All Americans
Felix (Doc) Blanchard and Glenn Davis, the Mr. Inside and Mr.
Outside of the undefeated Army teams in 1945 and 1946.
About 20 years later I met both of them at the Heisman Trophy
Awards dinner at the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan as a
working sportswriter invited to the event by Heisman director
Rudy Riska.
Blanchard was still in the Air Force during those Vietnam war
days and seemed a little grumpy about being dragged from his
home base to mingle with other Heisman winners and sign a few
autographs.
Davis was working for the Los Angeles Times in promotion and
seemed as handsome and healthy a personality as I remembered
from those old news clips, his exciting photos with young date
Elizabeth Taylor and his casual role in the film called “The
Spirit of West Point,” about their exploits on the playing
fields along the Hudson.
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Maury Allen met him at a Heisman dinner. |
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I was watching the Rose Bowl between Nebraska and Miami on the night of January 3, 2002. Why aren’t bowl games all played on New Year’s Day the way they are supposed to be? That’s another story.
This Nebraska quarterback, Eric Crouch, not a kid at 23 since he is already a father, seemed a little too skinny and a little too weak-armed to ever be the focus of a big movie. He might be a flanker back in the pros but they don’t make movies about flanker backs.
Crouch just about disappeared in the game as Miami beat the Cornhuskers 37-14 for the national title. Despite his choir boy good looks, his glowing career and his Heisman, he may have peaked just before his last regular season game, a terrible loss to Colorado and this boring Rose Bowl funk.
Riska, the Heisman trophy guy in New York City, will probably have a lot to say about Crouch in the update of his new book about his time at the DAC and his 25 years of being the executive boss of the Heisman event.
There isn’t a sports name in the last 40 years from Muhammad Ali and Joe Torre to Joe DiMaggio and Jim Brown who doesn’t drop in by picture or words to Riska’s tale of his times at the club in a delightful collection of sports tales.
The book is called, “40 Years at the Home of the Heisman” published by Coaches Choice of Monterey, California. It includes dozens of pictures of Riska with his pals, John Wayne, Bob Hope, Rudy Giuliani, DiMaggio, Torre, Ali and Mickey Mantle.
Riska has collected every sports star over the last four decades inside the DAC (now vacated due to its proximity to the fallen World Trade Center site) and most of the show biz names who get glassy-eyed when they sit next to baseball Hall of Famers, Heisman Trophy winners and legends of every athletic game.
At one dinner I sat a row behind Joe DiMaggio, Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey, Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Pete Dawkins and Jim Brown. I was amazed I didn’t wet my pants.
The club operates as a private facility for members who like to swim, play handball, exercise, pull on weights, tackle a dummy, compete in squash, fall asleep on a massage table, lie to each other at the friendly bar or share a sit down lunch with nobody-knows-who.
“To call the Downtown Athletic Club just another gentlemen’s club is akin to referring to the Pyramids of Egypt as a minor architectural undertaking,” Riska writes.
Riska’s real kick comes when he recites tales of memories of Heisman Award evenings with the winners since it all started with Chicago’s Jay Berwanger in 1935 (Yes, Virginia, University of Chicago was a football powerhouse once) and moved into the 2001 winner, the Rose Bowl’s wilted winner, Eric Crouch.
Riska relates his own impressions of the Heisman winners and has a few of them recite their cherished memories of the journey to New York and the acceptance of the award.
“Regardless of your current impression of O.J. Simpson,” he writes of the acquitted murder suspect, “he is a Heisman winner.”
“Personally, the O. J. I like to remember is the 21-year-old kid who came through the DAC doors in 1968, not exactly sure what was happening to him,” writes Riska.
Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, if they were alive, might have another O. J. story to tell.
Riska’s tales cover the experiences of Jim Plunkett, Terry Baker, Doak Walker, Archie Griffin and Marcus Allen, among others. He has personal memories from Roger Staubach, Joe Bellino, Howard Cassady, Johnny Lattner and Angelo Bertelli of their Heisman days.
All of the famed winners had wonderful things to say about Riska and he had nothing but cheers for all the Heisman winners he examined through his starry eyes.
Maybe 1967 Heisman winner
Gary Beban said it best when he wrote, “The Heisman Trophy’s
Most Valuable Player is Rudy Riska.”
© 2002 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel.
You
can comment on this column or contact Maury Allen with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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