Testaverde Wins One for Dad--the Heisman

NEW YORK — It had been just another job, just an average office building. But all the time that Al Testaverde had spent as construction foreman on the project, he had gazed at the imposing building on the next lot and dreamed.

The tall, brick building that drew Testaverde’s attention was the Downtown Athletic Club, where every year, college football’s best player is awarded the Heisman Memorial Trophy.

“I used to eat my lunch on the doorsteps,” he said. “I would sit there and say, ‘Someday, I’m going to walk through the front door and things will be different.’ ”

How different it was Saturday evening, with the former cement mixer inside the Downtown Athletic Club, beaming and crying and bursting with pride as his son, Vinny, the University of Miami quarterback and college football’s latest deity, humbly accepted the Heisman Trophy after winning it with the third-highest voting point total in the award’s 52-year history.

Al had dreamed that this would happen. He had virtually willed it.

“I just want to say to my dad, ‘Dad, we dreamed this together, we lived this together, and tonight we won this together,’ ” Vinny Testaverde, 23, said in his brief acceptance speech in the athletic club’s Heisman Room.

The dream-come-true theme was as oft-repeated a phrase as has been heard outside of a Miss America pageant. The living dream was on the lips of every Testaverde family member interviewed, a large and somewhat rowdy contingent with bright orange lapel buttons predicting, “Vinny Wins!”

They didn’t go out on a limb with that prediction. The other shoe had dropped on this one in September, when the season started.

“Vinny pulled away (in the voting) when they (voters) first got the ballots,” said Brian Bosworth, the flamboyant University of Oklahoma linebacker whose hair color matched the Testaverde family’s buttons. “Vinny had it locked up this year.”

Bosworth got 395 points in the voting and finished fourth, the spot Testaverde had claimed last year. Second was Temple running back Paul Palmer with 672 points; third was Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh with 458, and fifth was Holy Cross’ two-way player, Gordie Lockbaum, with 242.

Testaverde? He received 2,213 points.

All eyes and lenses were on the Miami quarterback when the club’s president, Eugene W. Meyer, announced the winner. There was scattered applause in the packed room, most of it concentrated among the squealing, bouncing members of Testaverde’s family.

Palmer, sitting next to Testaverde, and Bosworth, two chairs over, shook Testaverde’s hand and slapped him on the back.

Once at the speaker’s podium, Testaverde exhibited all the qualities that brought him the award: efficiency, a cool head under pressure and a quick release. It was like a two-minute drill.

“Vinny handled himself well up there,” Bosworth said. “I asked him before the thing if he was nervous. He said no. I asked him if he was thinking about winning, he said no. I asked him if he had any idea what he was going to say, he said no. I gave him a line to use, but he didn’t. I told him just to get up there and ask if anyone knew a joke.”

In the advice department, however, Vinny only has ears for his father, the man who slipped a tiny football into his five-day-old son’s bassinet.

So thick was his praise of his father that, inevitably, Testaverde was asked if it was he or his father who had won the award.

“There is an old saying, ‘What you are, I was. What I was, you will be,’ ” Vinny Testaverde said.

The “dream” story is that before Vinny was born, Al Testaverde was watching a football game in which Navy’s Heisman Trophy-winning running back, Joe Bellino, was playing. When the camera panned to Bellino’s father, watching proudly in the stands, Al said: “I want that to be me someday.”

Someday has arrived. It has become Vinny Testaverde’s expected postgame routine that he stands between both his parents, hugging them with all the strength in his 6-foot 5-inch, 220-pound body.

Ditto here. Vinny, the perfect son and model athlete, a member of his school’s Iron Arrow honorary society (dedicated to leadership and school spirit) and selected the nation’s Italian-American athlete of the year, rarely strayed from his father’s side Saturday evening.

In a quiet moment with a reporter, Testaverde did say he would like to explore the possibility of having a duplicate trophy made, melting it down, and giving parts of it, shaped as medallions, to his teammates.

“And, oh, yeah,” he said, “my dad too.”

HEISMAN FACTS, FIGURES THE VOTING Voting for the 1986 Heisman Trophy, with first, second and third place votes and total points (voting on 3-2-1 basis).

Player 1st 2nd 3rd Total Testaverde (Miami) 678 76 27 2213 Palmer (Temple) 28 207 174 672 Harbaugh (Mich.) 25 136 111 458 Bosworth (Okla.) 9 136 96 395 Lockbaum (Holy Cr.) 32 39 68 242 Fullwood (Auburn) 4 45 27 129 Bennett (Alabama) 3 29 29 96 Dozier (Penn St.) 0 23 31 77 Sweeny (Fresno St.) 6 16 23 73 Spielman (Ohio St.) 5 9 27 60

Leaders by Regions NORTHEAST--1. Testaverde; 2. Lockbaum; 3.Palmer; 4. Bosworth; 5. Harbaugh.

MID-ATLANTIC--1. Testaverde; 2. Palmer; 3. Harbaugh; 4. Bosworth; 5. Lockbaum.

SOUTH--1. Testaverde; 2. Fullwood; 3. Palmer; 4. Bennett; 5. Harbaugh.

SOUTHWEST--1. Testaverde; 2. Bosworth; 3. Palmer; 4. Harbaugh; 5. Kevin Murray (Texas A&M;).

MIDWEST--1. Testaverde; 2. Harbaugh; 3. Palmer; 4. Bosworth; 5. Spielman.

FAR WEST--1. Testaverde; 2. Palmer; 3. Harbaugh; 4. Bosworth; 5. Sweeney.

VINNY TESTAVERDE’S PASSING STATISTICS The career passing statistics of Miami (Fla.) quarterback Vinny Testaverde.

Yr Att Com Pct. Yds TD Int 1982 12 5 41.7 79 1 0 1984 34 17 50.0 184 0 1 1985 352 216 61.4 3238 21 15 1986 276 175 63.4 2557 26 9 4 YR 674 413 61.3 6058 48 25

PREVIOUS WINNERS AND RUNNERS-UP Vinny Testaverde of Miami (Fla.) won the Heisman Trophy voting by the second-largest margin in history. The most-lopsided Heisman victory was recorded in 1968 when O.J. Simpson of USC beat Purdue’s Leroy Keyes by 1,750 points. Here is a first-second rundown of the point total breakdown for 51 Heismans, not including the first won by Jay Berwanger of Chicago in 1935 for which there is no data. The closest vote came in 1985 when Bo Jackson of Auburn edged Chuck Long of Iowa, 1,509-1,464. 1936 1. Larry Kelly (Yale) 219 2. Sam Francis (Nebraska) 47 1937 1. Clifton Frank (Yale) 524 2. Byron White (Colorado) 264 1938 1. Davey O’Brien (TCU) 519 2. Marshall Goldberg (Pitt) 294 1939 1. Nile Kinnick (Iowa) 651 2. Tom Harmon (Michigan) 405 1940 1. Tom Harmon (Michigan) 1,303 2. John Kimbrough (Tex. A&M;) 841 1941 1. Bruce Smith (Minnesota) 554 2. Angelo Bertelli (Notre Dame) 345 1942 1. Frank Sinkwich (Georgia) 1,059 2. Paul Governali (Columbia) 218 1943 1. Angelo Bertelli (Notre Dame) 648 2. Bob Odell (Penn) 177 1944 1. Les Horvath (Ohio St.) 412 2. Glenn Davis (Army) 287 1945 1. Doc Blanchard (Army) 860 2. Glenn Davis (Army) 638 1946 1. Glenn Davis (Army) 792 2. Charles Trippi (Georgia) 435 1947 1. Johnny Lujack (Notre Dame) 742 2. Bob Chappus (Michigan) 555 1948 1. Doak Walker (SMU) 778 2. Charlie Justice (N. Carolina) 443 1949 1. Leon Hart (Notre Dame) 995 2. Charlie Justice (N. Carolina) 272 1950 1. Vic Janowicz (Ohio St.) 633 2. Kyle Rote (SMU) 280 1951 1. Dick Kazmaier (Princeton) 1,777 2. Hank Lauricella (Tennessee) 444 1952 1. Billy Vessels (Oklahoma) 525 2. Jack Scarbath (Maryland) 367 1953 1. John Lattner (Notre Dame) 1,850 2. Paul Giel (Minnesota) 1,794 1954 1. Alan Ameche (Wisconsin) 1,068 2. Kurt Burris (Oklahoma) 838 1955 1. Howard Cassidy (Ohio St.) 2,219 2. Jim Swink (TCU) 742 1956 1. Paul Hornung (Not. Dame) 1,066 2. Johnny Majors (Tennessee) 994 1957 1. John Dav. Crow (Tex A&M;) 1,183 2. Alex Karras (Iowa) 693 1958 1. Pete Dawkins (Army) 1,394 2. Randy Duncan (Iowa) 1,021 1959 1. Billy Cannon (LSU) 1,929 2. Richie Lucas (Penn St.) 613 1960 1. Joe Bellino (Navy) 1,793 2. Tom Brown (Minnesota) 731 1961 1. Ernie Davis (Syracuse) 824 2. Bob Ferguson (Ohio St.) 771 1962 1. Terry Baker (Oregon St.) 707 2. Jerry Stovall (LSU) 618 1963 1. Roger Staubach (Navy) 1,860 2. Billy Lothridge (Ga. Tech) 504 1964 1. John Huarte (Notre Dame) 1,026 2. Jerry Rhome (Tulsa) 552 vl,0.5 1965 1. Mike Garrett (USC) 926 2. Howard Twilley (Tulsa) 528 1966 1. Steve Spurrier (Florida) 1,679 2. Bob Griese (Purdue) 816 1967 1. Gary Beban (UCLA) 1,968 2. O.J. Simpson (USC) 1,722 1968 1. O.J. Simpson (USC) 2,853 2. Leroy Keyes (Purdue) 1,103 1969 1. Steve Owens (Oklahoma) 1,488 2. Mike Phipps (Purdue) 1,334 1970 1. Jim Plunkett (Stanford) 2,229 2. Joe Theismann (Not. Dame) 1,410 1971 1. Pat Sullivan (Auburn) 1,597 2. Ed Marinaro (Cornell) 1,445 1972 1. Johnny Rodgers (Nebraska) 1,310 2. Greg Pruitt (Oklahoma) 966 1973 1. J. Cappelletti (Penn St.) 1,057 2. John Hicks (Ohio St.) 524 1974 1. Archie Griffin (Ohio St.) 1,920 2. Anthony Davis (USC) 819 1975 1. Archie Griffin (Ohio St.) 1,800 2. Chuck Muncie (California) 730 1976 1. Tony Dorsett (Pittsburgh) 2,357 2. Ricky Bell (USC) 1,346 1977 1. Earl Campbell (Texas) 1,547 2. Terry Miller (Oklahoma St.) 812 1978 1. Billy Sims (Oklahoma) 827 2. Chuck Fusina (Penn St.) 750 1979 1. Charles White (USC) 1,695 2. Billy Sims (Oklahoma) 773 1980 1. George Rogers (S. Caro.) 1,128 2. Hugh Green (Pittsburgh) 861. 1981 1. Marcus Allen (USC) 1,797 2. Herschel Walker (Georgia) 1,199 1982 1. Herschel Walker (Georgia) 1,926 2. John Elway (Stanford) 1,231 1983 1. Mike Rozier (Nebraska) 1,801 2. Steve Young (BYU) 1,172 1984 1. Doug Flutie (Boston Col.) 2,240 2. Keith Byars (Ohio St.) 1,251 1985 1. Bo Jackson (Auburn) 1,509 2. Chuck Long (Iowa) 1,464 1986 1. Vinny Testaverde (Miami) 2,213 2. Paul Palmer (Temple) 672