The little, bronze statuette of a back running with the football while stiff-arming an unseen opponent has become the major focus of a controversy for the first time in its 75 years of existence.

Should the Heisman Trophy be taken away from one of the 75 men given the annual award as the nation's outstanding college football player because he committed serious violations of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules during the season he earned the trophy?

The Heisman Trust, which administers the annual award, is contemplating whether or not to strip Reggie Bush of the prestigious honor. Thus, there may only be 74 official Heisman Trophy winners by the end of this month.

Heisman Trust officials say no final decision has been reached.

Bush, now a highly-paid running back star for the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, has been accused by the NCAA of accepting cash and other improper gifts from agents while playing at Southern California. The Trojans have been severely penalized by the NCAA for this and numerous other infractions of NCAA rules.

If the Heisman Trust revokes Bush's trophy, it would be the first time such action has been taken since the Downtown Athletic Club first awarded the little statuette in 1935 to Jay Berwanger, a 6-foot-1-inch fast halfback for a mediocre University of Chicago football team.

It was not even called the Heisman Trophy 75 years ago. Berwanger had no idea what he won the day he received a telegram in late November of 1935 notifying him that he was the initial recipient of the "Downtown Athletic Club Trophy" as the nation's best football player that season.

Big deal! What and where is the Downtown Athletic Club?

The Downtown Athletic Club was an exclusive New York City hotel and physical fitness center for some of Wall Street's wealthy, Caucasian executives. The DAC opened its 35-story building near Manhattan's Battery in 1930 and hired a long-time college football coach, John Heisman, to be its director of athletics.

When the DAC decided to come up with this national college football award it commissioned a young graduate sculptor from Pratt Institute, Frank Eliscu, to produce an appropriate trophy statuette.

Then John Heisman died unexpectedly in October of 1936 from pneumonia, so the DAC decided to rename its new football award after him. The Heisman Trophy, which stands only 13 inches high and weighs 25 pounds, is one of the most famous and most recognizable of all sports trophies in this country, if not in the world.

But what did Jay Berwanger or anyone else in Chicago know about that in 1935? The very fast Chicago halfback, who once referred to himself as a coward, didn't know what to do with his 25-pound statuette so he gave it to his Aunt Gussie who used it as a door stop for years.

Berwanger said, "A fullback is a brave man. He likes to run over people. A halfback, by nature, has to be a coward. He runs away from others. I had 9.9 speed in the hundred-yard dash so I ran away."

Ironically, the University of Chicago, an original member of the Big Ten Conference, dropped football in 1940, four years after Berwanger's graduation.

Berwanger, who was the first player to be selected in the initial National Football League draft of college players in the spring of 1936, was picked by the Philadelphia Eagles, who traded him off to the Chicago Bears. But Berwanger never played professional football. After serving in the Naval Air Force during World War II, he settled into a career in the rubber and plastic industries. Berwanger died at age 88 in 2002.

Berwanger was among those Heisman Trophy winners who gave this annual award great prestige throughout the years because of their distinguished character and citizenship. Others such as Pete Dawkins, Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard of Army plus Nile Kinnick of Iowa, Johnny Lujack and Leon Hart of Notre Dame, Ernie Davis of Syracuse, Roger Staubach of Navy, John Capelletti of Penn State and many, many more make this Heisman roll call one of mostly outstanding men.

Larry Kelley, a big Yale end, was the first person awarded this prize named the Heisman Trophy when he was voted the honor in 1936. The Heisman Trophy is decided each year by a vote of a board of electors that has grown over the years to more than 800 men and women sports journalists.

There are some people who look back at the man who gave his name to the trophy and question whether John Heisman would stand severe scrutiny in an ethics examination.

Heisman was never accused of illegal activities. But this irascible fellow, who played and coached football during the infancy of the sport in the late 19th century and early 20th century, had a few tricks up his sleeve just about every week. He operated by a different set of rules and code of conduct than are today's guides for the game.

For instance, there is the famous or "infamous" game in which Georgia Tech, coached by Heisman, trounced Cumberland College of Tennessee, 220-0, Oct. 7, 1916. This record score will undoubtedly never be equaled or topped in the future.

Heisman admitted to rolling up the score and said, "You don't let up. You never know what those Cumberland players might have up their sleeves."

Prior to coaching at Georgia Tech, John Heisman coached Clemson, an arch rival of Georgia Tech in those days.

Heisman took a Clemson team to Atlanta one Friday in 1902, the day before a big game with Georgia Tech, and let his players loose on the town. Word got out that Clemson players were getting drunk and would be in no shape to compete against Tech on Saturday afternoon. The Yellow Jackets were delighted with prospects of a big victory.

Then came Saturday morning and another train arrived in Atlanta with Coach Heisman and his first string varsity players who had been housed quietly and trouble free in a nearby Atlanta suburb, while those other Clemson "athletes" got plastered. That has to be one of the best decoys in college football history.

Clemson won, 44-5.

John Heisman, who played at Brown and Penn and coached at Oberlin, Buchtel (now part of the University of Akron), Auburn, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Penn, Washington & Jefferson and Rice, was never quite in a class with many of the superb citizens who won the annual award named after him. He was too much of an opportunist and fast operator.

There are some who are calling for Reggie Bush to give the Heisman Trophy back before it is officially taken away from him. There are also those who say there are enough rascals among the other 74 Heisman Trophy winners to make it unfair to revoke only Reggie Bush's Heisman. They point to another Southern California Heisman Trophy winner, O.J.Simpson, as the prime example of one deserving to lose his award, also.

Southern California officials have eliminated all vestiges of Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy on the Trojan campus. This still leaves six Heisman Trophy replicas on view around the Southern Cal compounds.

Reggie Bush has apologized to Southern California for anything he may have done to harm his alma mater. That is a virtual admission of guilt. Thus, I have no problem with the Heisman Trust revoking Bush's Heisman Trophy.

Gordon White served 43 years as a sports reporter for The New York Times. His email is sports@thepilot.com.