Quick, name a college football award.
The Heisman, right? Then probably the Maxwell, maybe the Butkus or the Bednarik. (Yes, kicker hipsters, the Lou Groza counts too.)
But the Lombardi Award has been around since 1970, annually given to the best offensive or defensive lineman, or linebacker. If you’re thinking that sounds like a weird group of positions to compete for the same award, well, the Lombardi Award folks (comprised of the Rotary Club of Houston, and that’s somehow true) apparently reached the same conclusion, as they announced this week that the award will now be open to all positions.
But that’s not the best part! The best part is, they’re somehow including a morality quotient. Let’s go back to that Cleveland.com story for the money quote:
The announcement was made Thursday in Houston, the home of the award, and sports broadcaster Spencer Tillman explained the new Lombardi this way at the announcement of the change.
“If someone were to push me in a corner and ask me, ‘What’s the difference between this award and the Heisman Trophy award?’ I would tell you this. The difficult truth is a Tim Tebow could have won this award, but a Johnny Manziel could not have won this award. That’s the difference,” Tillman said.
Finally, an award that will attempt to mathematically calculate the various potential morality biases normally present in a voting bloc and add that in as its own component.
This isn’t to say that all these transgressions mentioned here are equal. Not at all. But Tillman mentioned that “algorithm” to determine the off-field component of the award and why a player might be excluded. Tillman said it would “ferret out players with bad histories.”
Yeah, this sounds like a great idea. Obviously, the good folks at the Houston Rotary Club can do what they want with their prestigious award. (Which has only been around slightly longer than the People’s Choice Awards.) And there’s nothing wrong with feeling squeamish about voting for a player who has a checkered history off the field. But as soon as you try to codify and weight various levels of indiscretion, you’re going to be doing it wrong.
The Lombardi Award does sound cool, and they should keep that name, because Best College Player We Feel Meets Our Own Biased Arbitrary Morality Standard Award doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.
