Columbus, Ohio – It happens all the time.
Not just in Mansfield or Orrville or Cuyahoga Falls, but in places like Orlando and Baltimore as well.
“Everywhere I go,” Ohio State secondary coach Tim Beckman says.
It happens so often that it no longer strikes Beckman as odd that strangers will see his red Buckeyes golf shirt or overhear him mention his occupation and come up to him and begin asking about Archie Griffin.
A few months ago Beckman was in Maryland on a recruiting trip when he bumped into a friend. As the men talked, Griffin’s name came up.
“Next thing I know I’ve got five other guys walking up to me, standing around wanting to talk about Archie,” Beckman said. “It doesn’t matter where you go around the country: People still want to talk about Archie.”
The three decades since he left opposing defenses and college football fans breathless have not diminished the former Ohio State tailback’s place of prominence in the sport’s history. He remains the sole member of the game’s most exclusive club – the only man to win the Heisman Trophy, the sport’s highest honor, twice. If anything, Griffin’s stature has been raised this autumn by the convergence of the 30th anniversary of his second Heisman victory in 1975 and USC quarterback Matt Leinart’s attempt to become the second Heisman winner to repeat.
Discussion of Leinart’s bid on Saturday morning pregame shows is invariably accompanied by footage of Griffin darting through a hole that wasn’t there, bursting into daylight. While he does not seek the spotlight, he moves through it with ease like it was a long-ago stretch of open field in Columbus or Ann Arbor.
“Winning (the Heisman) twice changed my life, no doubt,” Griffin said. “I was no longer Archie Griffin. I was two-time Heisman Trophy-winner Archie Griffin.”
Except in Ohio, where folks consider themselves on a first-name basis with Archie. Griffin, 51, remains a Big Man On Campus, his presence eclipsed only by the spirit of his late coach Woody Hayes.
In a Buckeye Nation that makes no apologies for Hayes, Griffin and Woody are forever linked. Step inside the front door of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and high on the main wall just beneath Hayes’ “You Win With People” quote is a life-sized cutout of Griffin eluding a tackler.
At a store across the street from Ohio Stadium, the Archie bobbleheads stand next to the Woody bobbleheads, two rows over from the Archie and Woody clocks.
And on fall Saturdays, Griffin, in his second year as president of the Ohio State alumni association, can watch from his office the red stream of Buckeyes fans to the stadium, hundreds of them wearing replicas of his No. 45 jersey.
Many of those in the jerseys weren’t born when Griffin first burst into the national consciousness as a freshman, coming off the bench against North Carolina in the second game of the 1972 season, to run for a then-NCAA single-game record 239 yards. A year later he ran for 246 yards against Iowa and began a string of 31 consecutive 100-plus yards rushing games.
“That streak says a lot,” said Steve Luke, a former Big Ten defensive back and Griffin’s roommate at Ohio State. “That’s 31 100-yard games with everyone knowing what we were going to do and everyone coming at him. When you prepared for us, you prepared for Archie Griffin.”
It didn’t stop Griffin from running for 1,695 yards and 12 touchdowns as a junior to win the 1974 Heisman. Griffin’s joy at winning was immediately followed by thoughts of needing to repeat as a senior.
“I thought, ‘Hey, I’ve got another year to go,”‘ Griffin said.
“Woody used to say, ‘If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse; you’re never staying the same.’ I just won the Heisman, I needed to win it again. I put pressure on myself, really. You heard people talking about (repeating), everybody thought you were going to win it again, it was always in your mind. Therein lies the pressure, whether you want it or not, it’s there.”
In 1975, Griffin not only faced the expectations of a Heisman repeat but the prospect of carrying a Buckeyes squad depleted by graduation to a fourth consecutive Rose Bowl. He rushed for 1,450, and Ohio State arrived in Pasadena undefeated and ranked No. 1, only to be upset by No. 11 UCLA, 23-10.
A month earlier Griffin had won a second Heisman, accomplishing what four earlier junior winners – Army’s Doc Blanchard, SMU’s Doak Walker, Ohio State’s Vic Janowicz and Navy’s Roger Staubach – could not.
“In those days (Heisman) officials called the school’s sports information office to say they’d like me to come to New York for a press conference and that there would be two other (finalists) there,” Griffin recalled. “When I got there my junior year, I was the only guy there, so when they called my senior year I knew I was the winner.”
Griffin also expected more company in the two-time winner’s club.
“I’m really surprised no one else has won it twice,” he said. “I thought by now I wouldn’t be the only one.”
Oklahoma’s Billy Sims won the 1978 Heisman as a junior, then came back the next year to lead the nation in rushing (1,506) and touchdowns (22) but finished second to USC’s Charles White. Since Sims, nine juniors have won the Heisman, with six of them skipping their senior seasons to turn pro.
Oklahoma QB Jason White, the 2003 winner, was second to Leinart.
“Matt Leinart, I really think has an opportunity to (repeat), especially with that team,” Griffin said.
Griffin spoke briefly with Leinart and his father before last year’s Heisman ceremony, but Griffin couldn’t reach Leinart in the mob scene after the announcement. If he had, what advice would Griffin have given the Trojan?
“Just go out and play with the same attitude he had a year ago. And don’t worry about things you don’t have control over.”
Griffin went on to play eight NFL seasons with Cincinnati.
An undersized back in a pass-oriented offense, he never approached the greatness he achieved at Ohio State.
“He wasn’t happy with that role, but he understood it,” Luke said. “He never complained. That’s not his style.”
“I’ve been very fortunate,” Griffin said. “(Winning two Heismans) has given me the opportunity to do things, go places I never would have without it.”
Each December it brings Griffin to New York for the Heisman ceremony.
Often his old college roommate joins him.
“We’ll be walking down some street in New York City,” Luke said, “and somebody will come up and say, ‘Aren’t you Archie Griffin?’ And they’ll start talking to Archie. It happens all the time.”
