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Last December, Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza pulled off a twelve-yard touchdown with a national title on the line — and he looked calm. That calm became the question of the offseason: why him? What separates the athlete who rises in that moment from the thousands of talented athletes who don't?

This finale is the answer, drawn from every interview we ran this offseason. Olympic gold medalists Joey Cheek, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Quincy Watts. Coaches Curt Cignetti and Lincoln Riley. Sports neurologist Dr. Stephanie Alessi-LaRosa and The Performance Cortex author Zach Schonbrun. Elise Devlin of The Athletic, who has interviewed hundreds of elite performers about their mental habits. Monte Burke on Pete Carroll. Max Browne, once the top quarterback recruit in America, on what the old model cost him. And Davis Wilson, seventeen years old and already running a reset routine on the mound.

The answer is not one thing. It is a stack of things: the hardware you are born with, the software built through mileage, the daily choice of excellence over comfort, and a trained mind. Above all of it sits luck, which nobody controls, and joy, which turns out to be fundamental rather than a reward.

Talent is natural. Separating that talent from the rest requires building.

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The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

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The Heisman Trophy Podcast's off-season search for the origins of elite athleticism continues with Quincy Watts, who won two gold medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and now directs the track and field program at USC.

Watts grew up in Detroit, a basketball player who happened to be fast. He traces the spark to the 1984 Olympics, when he watched Carl Lewis win four golds, pointed at the television, and told his father he would win one too. The road there was not straight. He resisted the 400 meters — "the pain business," he calls it — long enough to try out for USC football, and he lost three early seasons to hamstring injuries before deciding, his senior year, to choose excellence over comfort every single day.

He won that gold in an Olympic-record 43.50, then added a second in the 4×400 relay. Host Chris Huston walks him through the final itself: the meditation in the staging area, the moment time seemed to slow on the backstretch, and finding his father in the stands at the line.

Watts also talks coaching — reading the difference between a Michael Norman and a Rai Benjamin, "two Ferraris built different" — and gives a blunt answer to the question at the heart of the series: what separates an elite athlete from a merely very good one.

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The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.

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The Heisman Trophy Podcast continues its quest to explore the origins of elite athleticism, this time by delving into the mental habits and routines that distinguish elite athletes from the rest. Elise Devlin, who writes about these topics for The Athletic, joins us to provide key insights as we discover the ways mental performance, routines, and vulnerability contribute to athletic excellence and how these lessons can apply to everyone.

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.

Send us Fan Mail

This month's Heisman Trophy Podcast is a mega-episode as we take a journey into the realm of neuroscience and what it tells us about brain development in elite athletes. How much do we know about the brain as it pertains to athleticism? What factors help determine which athletes becomes great and which do not?  Are elite athletes wired differently?  Is their development due primarily to nature or nurture?  Guests include neuroscientist Stephanie Alessi-LaRosa, the head of the sports neurology department at the Hartford HealthCare Ayer Neuroscience Institute, Zach Schonbrun, author of The Performance Cortex, former 5-star quarterback, current ESPN color commentator Max Browne, and class of 2027 right hand pitcher Davis Wilson of Fresno (Calif.) North High, an elite Major League Baseball prospect who is committed to Vanderbilt.

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

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What separates greatness from good? This episode puts that question to three people who have lived the answer. Curt Cignetti, who coached Fernando Mendoza from overlooked transfer to Heisman winner and national champion, breaks down what he saw on tape and what he watched develop once Mendoza arrived in Bloomington. Lincoln Riley — the only active coach to have guided three Heisman winners — traces the common thread through Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Caleb Williams, three men with nothing in common except the belief that their circumstances were never going to stop them. And Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, the 2019 Heisman Humanitarian Award winner, reflects on a career that began as physical therapy and ended in Albertville, and on what she saw from Alyssa Liu in Milan that reminded her exactly of how champions are made. The sport changes, but the wiring doesn't.

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.

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The Heisman Trophy Podcast is now available in the offseason, starting with this month's episode featuring, Joey Cheek, a 2006 Olympic speed skating gold medalist and original Heisman Humanitarian. Cheek shares insights on athletic excellence, mental toughness, the impact of social media, and his humanitarian work with the organizations Right to Play and Team Darfur. Discover how elite athletes prepare, handle pressure, and leverage their platforms for global good. Also, find out what it's like to hang with George Clooney and Don Cheadle on the way to Egypt. 

Only three living football coaches have coached three or more Heisman Trophy winners and one of them is Pete Carroll, formerly of USC. Explore the fascinating career of Carroll through the insights of author Monte Burke, a New York Times bestselling author who brings clear focus to Carroll's coaching philosophy and impact on college football.

We close out the show by making a list of the five best plays in Heisman Trophy history.  Will Fernando Mendoza's amazing run against Miami make the cut?

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

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Newly-crowned Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza of Indiana returns to the Heisman Trophy Podcast to share what it was like to win the most prestigious individual award in American sports. Mendoza reflects on the achievement, the significance of the Heisman name, and the responsibilities that come with it. He shares insights about his journey, the support from teammates and family, and how he plans to navigate fame and public attention. Mendoza emphasizes the importance of mentorship and giving back, as well as his plans for the trophy itself. After Mendoza, we have a great chat with legendary broadcaster and friend of the Heisman, Neil Everett, who confesses to getting a lump in his throat during Mendoza's acceptance speech. We close with Bob Seidel, the executive director of Beat the Streets NYC, an organization on a mission to develop the full human and athletic potential of New York City urban youth...through wrestling.

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.

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It's beginning to to look a lot like Heisman and the trophy's official podcast is here to ring in the season proper. We've got four finalists set to come to New York City for the 2025 Heisman Trophy ceremony: Notre Dame's Jeremiyah Love, Indiana's Fernando Mendoza, Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia and Ohio State's Julian Sayin. Kick off the festivities by taking a walk down memory lane as we tell the history of the Heisman ceremony itself, which evolved from a humble luncheon in 1935, to a variety shows starring Farrah Fawcett and Elliott Gould in 1977, to the format on ABC we know and love today. Hall of Fame sportscaster Don Criqui recalls his long tenure as emcee of the Heisman gala. And to close things out, former Presidential speechwriter and current The Atlantic magazine writer David Frum shares with us his thoughts on three of the most famous acceptance speeches in Heisman history: Nile Kinnick's in 1939, Bruce Smith's in 1941 and John Cappelletti's in 1973. 

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.

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In this week's episode, we talk to 2025 Heisman Humanitarian Award winner Larry Fitzgerald, a legendary wide out for Pittsburgh who finished as Heisman runner up in 2003 before going on to a storied NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals.

Fitzgerald shares insights into his philanthropic efforts through his Larry Fitzgerald Foundation, which focuses on youth education and breast cancer awareness. He emphasizes the importance of bridging the digital divide for underserved youth and reflects on his global humanitarian experiences. The conversation also touches on his football career, legacy, and the impact of his work in the community.

The Heisman is more than a trophy. It's also a charitable foundation that distributes millions in donations every year to worthy causes that help underserved communities. The Heisman Humanitarian Award recognizes figures in the sports world who have distinguished records in this area.

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.

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This week's pod takes a trip down memory lane with former Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke on the 25th anniversary of his Heisman-winning season. Learn how the late-1980s three-sport high school prodigy out of Minnesota transformed into the improbable and unflappable late-1990s Seminole field general who -- at age 28! -- helped cap one of college football's great dynastic runs.  Now the offensive coordinator for Georgia Tech, Weinke looks back fondly at his Heisman weekend, the last one held at the old Downtown Athletic Club, and shares why the late, great Bobby Bowden was so central to his success in life. To close out the show, we chat with ESPN analyst Max Browne, who helps put a bow on the 2025 college football regular season while also identifying an interesting trend or two.

Support the show

The Heisman Trophy Podcast streams every Wednesday during the college football season and monthly during the offseason, and is hosted produced, edited and engineered by Chris Huston. The pod is available on all streaming networks, including Spotify and Apple Music, and features video interviews and bonus content on YouTube and TikTok. We also have a reddit community.

Email us at [email protected] for feedback and inquiries.