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1955 Hopalong Cassady Walter Camp Trophy
Howard "Hopalong" Cassady hit the field running in his first game at Ohio State, coming off the bench to score 3 TDs in a victory over Indiana, and never stopped running. Playing halfback and defensive back during 2 All-America seasons, '54 and '55, Cassady became the anchor on the '54 Buckeyes who went 10-0 and cruised to the national title -- Woody Hayes' first -- and then rushed for 964 yards and 15 TDs in '55 -- the year he won both the Heisman and this spectacular Walter Camp Memorial Trophy, emblematic of the College Player of the Year but also for the man who best reflects the ideals, sportmanship and dedication for the game idealized by Camp, the "father" of football who invented nearly all of its rules and regulations in the 19th Century. Indeed, for Cassady stats were only part of the story. The Ohio State backfield, with Casady, Hubert Bobo and Bobby Watkins, had 2 of the top 3 leading rushers in the nation that year, and Cassady's 5.4-yards-per-carry average was the <i>lowest</i> of the trio. But his spirit and influence as a team leader was the Buckeye backbone, and the coaches who voted on the award made him an easy winner. What's more, back then the Camp was as much if not more prestigious and coveted by players than the Heisman. One look at the tophy will explain why. This is no trinket; it's a monster of a trophy, the kind not seen these days, with sleek glitziness having replaced bigness. The Camp, as it was in its halcyon days, rises like the Washington Monument, 34" from the bottom of its opulent, 2-tiered wooden base to the top of the 11" gold column supporting a loving cup and a silver figure of a kicker, his right leg ramrod-straight and his craned upward over his head, both arms flayed up into the air. Trophy is also embellished by the 2 silver running backs in a kind of Heisman pose mounted on left and right of the top oval tier of the base (9" in diameter") and 2 silver footballs anchored to right and left the lower oval tier (15" in diameter). Each tier has a silver plaque framed by 2 columns. Top plaque in engraved, "Walter Camp Memorial Trophy"; lower plaque reads, "Awarded to Howard Cassady, the Outstanding College Back of 1955, by The Touchdown Club of Washington, D.C." On the left is an endearing image of a child in a football uniform. Trophy displays extremely well, and even better with a good polishing. Condition is VG-EX with a few dings on the finished wood of the base and a light rime of tarnishing on the metal. One of the very few Camp Trophies available in this form, and a special one given the magnitude of Cassady's season, when he won practically every award under the sun, as can be seen in an enclosed Sports Illustrated from February 1956 with a photo feature on Cassady's panoply of awards including this very Camp Trophy, which later was given by Hopalong to a friend. Excellence should be rewarded only with a trophy like this.
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