John Heisman John William Heisman ( October 23 , 1869 – October 3 , 1936 ) was an American football player and coach of football , basketball , and baseball . He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College ( 1892 , 1894 ) , Buchtel College , now known as the University of Akron ( 1893 – 1894 ) , Auburn University ( 1895 – 1899 ) , Clemson University ( 1900 – 1903 ) , Georgia Tech ( 1904 – 1919 ) , the University of Pennsylvania ( 1920 – 1922 ) , Washington & Jefferson College ( 1923 ) , and Rice University ( 1924 – 1927 ) , compiling a career college football record of 186 – 70 – 18 . His 1917 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have been recognized as a national champion . Heisman was also the head basketball coach at Georgia Tech ( 1908 – 1909 , 1912 – 1914 ) , tallying a mark of 9 – 14 , and the head baseball coach at Buchtel ( 1894 ) , Clemson ( 1899 – 1904 ) , and Georgia Tech ( 1904 – 1917 ) , amassing a career college baseball record of 219 – 119 – 7 . He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954 . The Heisman Trophy , awarded annually to the season ' s most outstanding college football player , is named for him . Early life and playing career . Heisman was born in Cleveland , Ohio , but grew up in Titusville , Pennsylvania , where he played football for Titusville High School , graduating in 1887 . He went on to play football at Brown University ( 1887 – 1889 ) and at the University of Pennsylvania ( 1890 – 1891 ) . Early coaching career . Heisman coached at Oberlin College in 1892 , went to Buchtel College in 1893 , and returned to Oberlin the next year . In 1895 , he became the fifth head football coach at Auburn University , where he stayed for five years . Auburn is the only school of the eight that he coached to have a Heisman Trophy winner . In 1900 , Heisman went to Clemson University , where he coached four winning seasons . A street on the campus bears his name to honor him . Coaching career . Heisman moved from Clemson to Georgia Tech in 1904 , where he coached for the longest tenure of his career ( 16 years ) . He won 77 % of his football games , and had his finest success , winning a national championship in 1917 . At Georgia Tech , Heisman also coached basketball and baseball in addition to football . He was paid $ 2 , 250 and 30 percent of attendance fees ; later in his time at Tech , his salary went up and the percentage of receipts went down . Heisman eventually also coached basketball and track , became the head of the Atlanta Baseball Association and the athletic director of the Atlanta Athletic Club . He cut back on these expanded duties in 1918 , when he only coached football between September 1 and December 15 . In football at Tech , Heisman put together 16 consecutive non - losing seasons , including three undefeated campaigns and a 32 - game undefeated streak . In his first year , his team posted victories over Georgia , Tennessee , Florida , and Cumberland , and a tie with his last employer , Clemson . In a game played in Atlanta in 1916 , Heisman ' s Georgia Tech squad defeated the Cumberland College Bulldogs , 222 – 0 , in the most one - sided college football game ever played . Heisman ' s running up the score against his out - manned opponent was supposedly motivated by revenge against Cumberland ' s baseball team for running up the score against Tech , 22 – 0 , the previous year with a team primarily composed of semi - pro players , and against sportswriters he felt were too focused on numbers . After a divorce in 1919 , Heisman left Atlanta to prevent any social embarrassment to his former wife , who chose to remain in the city . He went back to Penn for one season in 1920 , then to Washington and Jefferson College , before ending his career with four seasons at the Rice Institute . Death and burial . Heisman died October 3 , 1936 in New York City . Three days later he was taken by train to his wife ' s hometown of Rhinelander , Wisconsin , where he was buried in Grave D , Lot 11 , Block 3 of the city - owned Forest Home Cemetery . Legacy . He was an innovator and developed one of the first shifts , had both guards pull to lead an end run , and had his center toss the ball back , instead of rolling or kicking it . He was a proponent of the legalization of the forward pass in 1906 and he originated the " hike " or " hep " shouted by the quarterback to start each play . He suggested that the game be divided into quarters instead of halves . Heisman subsequently became the athletics director of the former Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan , New York . In 1935 the club began awarding a Downtown Athletic Club trophy for the best football player east of the Mississippi River . On December 10 , 1936 , just two months after Heisman ' s death on October 3 , the trophy was renamed the Heisman Memorial Trophy , and is now given to the player voted as the season ' s best nationwide collegiate player . Voters for this award consist primarily of media representatives , who are allocated by regions across the country in order to filter out possible regional bias , and former recipients . Following the bankruptcy of the Downtown Athletic Club in 2002 , the award is now given out by the Yale Club . Heisman Street on Clemson ' s campus is named in his honor . There is also a street named after him on Auburn University , which intersects with Donahue Blvd . at the site of Tigerwalk , an Auburn tradition .