A Q&A With Heisman Trustee Jim Corcoran, Including Thoughts On Reggie Bush’s Return

Heisman Trustee Jim Corcoran joined the Official Heisman Trophy Podcast in this week’s first episode of the season and discussed a handful of topics, chiefly the reinstatement of USC’s 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush.

Below is a transcript of the interview. It has been edited for clarity.

Here is a link the home of the Official Heisman Trophy podcast, where you can hear the complete interview and listen to past and future episodes.

Host Chris Huston: It’s been a very eventful summer for the Heisman Trust. Of course the biggest news has been the reinstatement of 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush. This was obviously something that has sort of been an asterisk for a few years.  We’re curious, what was your thought process? What was the Trust’s thought process?

Jim Corcoran: We’ve been closely monitoring all of the enormous changes that have been taking place in college football. The landscape has changed, including the Supreme Court decision in 2021, which questioned the legality of amateurism, as you know, and it has opened the door to a totally new world, whether it’s name, image, and likeness or the recent proposal to remove the cap on education-related payments. So just the total landscape, Chris, has changed. And the Trust thought it was time to get together and make a change. 

CH: How do you guys decide on something like that? Is it a voting process? Do you guys get together in a locked room and sweat it out until you come up with an answer? 

JC: It’s a vote by the Trustees. You know, there really wasn’t any question now. It’s been a long time coming. We all got together and we just thought it was time. We thought Reggie had paid his dues. And more importantly, the landscape has changed. I think that’s why you saw a good reception to the announcement of giving Reggie back his trophy.

So many people, when they talk about college football and they talk 2005, they definitely know who the best player was and we just thought it was time and the right thing to do to give Reggie’s trophy back.  

CH: Who made the call to Reggie and give him the news? 

JC: Our president, Mike Comerford, reached out to Reggie’s team to let them know. 

Reggie had not only a great college career, but he had a great pro career. He has his own foundation that still does a lot of great things to help others. I think it’ll be a great opportunity for people to learn a lot more about Reggie Bush and what he’s all about. We look forward to having him back on the dais with the greatest fraternity in the world, the Heisman Trophy winners.

CH: You guys all got together down in Florida when this announcement was made and you all sort of had a little powwow. Some of the winners were there. What were the emotions in the room like among the different various winners.

JC: You’d have loved it. We had maybe 15 former winners there and Mike Comerford got up there and made a speech to welcome him back. There were tears shed and there were hugs and so many people happy to have him back. It was exciting. He was very emotional. 

CH: Does Reggie plan on coming out to the ceremony this year and taking part in the fun things like the Nissan Heisman House? 

JC: I believe he is. I don’t think the world necessarily knows it out there, but you know, the Heisman presentation that happens on TV, when the winner gets the award on Saturday night, we end up throwing a black tie dinner the next night. I think we’re moving it to a brunch this year, moving it up because of the expanded college football playoffs. There’s probably going to be a number of contenders that are going to have to get back to their teams right away.

But the rest of the world should know that they can come to this event and when they do, you just buy a ticket and it works as a charitable donation because we’re a 501c3. The people that get to come to the dinner not only get a bird’s eye view, they can get pictures taken with winners and can get autographs and what not. We have 25 to 28 Heisman Trophy winners that are up on the dais.

CH: You know, one of the things I really loved about the decision to bring Reggie back into the fold was because the Heisman is the institution in college football that has probably changed the least over the years. It’s maybe the only institution left in the sport that is not going through catastrophic change at the moment. There’s also this reputation, fairly or not, for, for moving with deliberation and due process.  

And I think that the Heisman Trust showed some great true colors in this regard by showing it could be flexible, showing it could change, showing it’s not necessarily invested in being stuck.

JC: As a trust, we are very confident that reinstating the trophy to Reggie is the right thing to do.  And it is not going to diminish the value of the trophy or its well -earned reputation for integrity. 

CH: I just want to talk about the Heisman Weekend real quick. It looks like this year, with all the changes in college football, the ceremony, the weekend surrounding it, it’s going to be a little different. Like you mentioned, potentially going to a Heisman brunch on the Sunday after the ceremony.  Going into the future, do you see this year as kind of a little bit of a testing ground to see what works and then tweak it again going forward and maybe build some new traditions?

JC: Yeah, that’s a really good question Chris. We’ve been tweaking it a little bit over the last 20 years. You know, it started off as a four-day event. We have had private dinners for just the former winners and the contenders. Saturday we’ve had the telecast and then Sunday, a big dinner. We feel that that’s a great time of year, after the season ends and  before the bowl games. But you have got to keep tweaking it.

CH: I love the fact that the Heisman is still a regular season award and if I had my druthers, the Heisman would remain that. So we keep that one tradition because one good thing about keeping it a regular season award is that everyone plays the regular season.

JC: Not everyone plays in a playoff. Chris, you are a hundred percent on it. I mean, if you, were talking to somebody from one of the top four schools, they would say, well, wait a minute, look what he did in the final game.

CH: But that’s the great thing about college football is that the whole premise of the college football is to be able to argue about this. 

CH: Let’s close it out by telling us a little bit about what the Heisman Trust does.  

JC: I love when you ask me that question. You know, as I said earlier, we are a charitable organization. And our mission is to grow the legacy and preserve the integrity of the Heisman Memorial Trophy. 

Our goal is to harness the power of the Heisman Trophy’s legacy of athletic excellence to positively impact our nation’s youth and provide more equitable opportunities for underserved communities. I’m on the Charitable Giving Committee. We give away somewhere in the vicinity of 3-to-5 million dollars a year.

It’s been going up every year. You can go on our website, heisman.com, and you can see all the charities we give to. We also support the Heisman Trophy winners’ and their charities. We also, every year, give out the Heisman Humanitarian Award to someone who meets the mission of what we’re doing and has done really good things in their lives.

CH: Jim Corcoran, thanks for coming on the Official Heisman Trophy Podcast. You are indispensable to the Heisman’s success and its mission.

JC: Thanks Chris, keep up the good work. Good luck with the season this year. And let’s see who who steps up and becomes the Heisman winner this year.