Heisman Ballers On The Hardcourt
The 2025 NCAA Tournament kicks off this week, which serves as our annual reminder that the Heisman Trophy has a storied history of winners who excelled on the hardcourt.
Next time you’re at your local pub’s sports trivia night, keep these pair of Heisman factoids in your back pocket for some quick points.
The answer to the question of who is the only person to win a Heisman Trophy and make an appearance in the NCAA Final Four is, of course, 1962 Oregon State winner Terry Baker.
And the answer to the question of who is the only Heisman winner to play in the NBA, well that is 1993 Florida State winner Charlie Ward.
Now let’s dig into the details in case you get bonus points during the trivia competition.
Baker helped the 1962-63 Beavers team reach the NCAA basketball Final Four thanks to three win against Seattle, San Francisco and Arizona State – en route to reaching the national semifinals, where Oregon State fell to Cincinnati (and consequently lost in the third-place game against Duke).
Baker averaged 13.4 points per game as a senior point guard and was named the 1962 national Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated, topping such sports heavyweights as Wilt Chamberlain, Sonny Liston and Bart Starr.
Baker, in fact, originally went to Oregon State on a basketball scholarship and played three seasons for the Beavers basketball team. He also helped OSU reach the regional finals as a junior.
There was no rest for Baker between football and basketball. After leading the Beavers to a 6-0 win in the 1962 Liberty Bowl, where his NCAA record 99-yard TD run was the game’s only score in a 6-0 win, Baker had to return to Corvallis for a practice with the basketball team. Days later, he was fully into hoops season.
As for Ward, the NBA’s only Heisman-winning player, he almost duplicated Baker’s impressive Final Four feat. Almost.
In Tallahassee, Ward was a point guard on the Seminoles team for four seasons, including the squad that advanced to the Elite Eight in March of 1993.
Ward debuted on the hoops team as a 1991 redshirt freshman, playing in a career-high 30 games. He averaged 8.0 points, 3.4 assists and 3.0 rebounds per game and helped the team to a 21-11 record, which included a first-round NCAA Tournament win over USC and a second-round loss to Indiana.
That fall, Ward was still backing up starter Brad Johnson at quarterback on Bobby Bowden’s football team and played sparingly as a redshirt sophomore signal-caller.
Following the 1991 football season, he resumed hoops full time and helped Florida State’s 1991-92 squad to a 22-10 season that saw the Seminoles ranked as high as No. 16. Ward started 22 of 28 games and averaged 7.2 points, 4.4 assists and a conference-best 2.7 steals per game.
He helped FSU reach the ACC semifinals and then the NCAA Sweet 16, which included wins over Montana and Georgetown before another loss to an Indiana team that reached the Final Four.
Ward had no issues transitioning back to the gridiron that fall. He took over the starting quarterback duties on the Florida State football team in 1992 and led the Seminoles to an 11-1 record and a national championship thanks to a 27-14 win over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.
The huge football season naturally ate into more of hoops season than it had as an underclassmen, but Ward was still able to play in 17 games as a 1992-93 junior, starting 14 times.
As a 1992-93 junior hoopster, Ward averaged 7.8 points 5.5 assists and 2.8 steals per game on a Seminoles team that earned a No. 3 seed in the 1993 NCAA Tournament’s Southeast Regional.
FSU opened with decisive wins over Evansville and Tulane to advance to the Sweet 16. There, Ward helped the Seminoles move on to the Elite 8 with an overtime win over Western Kentucky. But the run ended two days later to second-seeded Kentucky, a game short of the Final Four.
Ward’s successful junior hoops season was a prophetic springboard to his 1993 football campaign, when he, of course, won the Heisman Trophy.
But he was back on the hardwood just 15 days after winning the Heisman. He started 16 games as a 1994 senior point guard, averaging 10.5 points and 4.9 assists for the season.
A few months later, Ward eschewed the NFL and became a New York Knick.
Other Heisman winners with success on the hardcourt include:
Nile Kinnick — The future Hawkeye led his football team to an undefeated season as a senior in high school, but he also scored 485 points for the basketball team, helping them advance to the district finals. At Iowa, he played football, basketball and baseball as a freshman and was the hoops team’s second-leading scorer as a sophomore. He then gave up basketball to concentrate on his studies…and football.
Tom Harmon — Harmon was an all-conference basketball player and three-year letterman at Horace Mann High in Gary, Ind. He also lettered in basketball at Michigan. He was inducted into the state of Indiana’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Glenn Davis — Perhaps the finest all-around athlete ever to play at Army, Davis earned a letter in basketball as a guard for the Knights.
John Lujack — Lujack lettered in four sports at Notre Dame, including basketball.
Doak Walker — The legendary Walker also lettered in basketball for SMU.
Dick Kazmaier — According to Kazmaier, he had a better year freshman year in basketball at Princeton than he did in football. He was relegated to the bench in subsequent years, but he would not be stopped when he stepped on the gridiron.
Paul Hornung — Hornung averaged 6.1 points per game as a sophomore for the Irish basketball team in 1954-55.
Joe Bellino — Bellino was the star of Winchester High’s basketball team, which won the Massachussetts state title during his sophomore and junior seasons. The squad’s 55-game win streak was snapped during his senior year. He later lettered in basketball for the Midshipmen.
Ernie Davis — Davis played basketball as a junior at Syracuse in the 1960-61 season. He put up impressive numbers, with 10.2 points and 9.6 rebounds in nine games, starting three times. He once pulled down 18 rebounds against Canisius. He also was the top player on Syracuse’s freshman team in 1958-59.
Steve Spurrier — Spurrier was all-state in four sports, including basketball, coming out of Science Hill High in Johnston, Tenn.
