I’ve never cared much for the Heisman Trophy. It is like the MVP trophies in various sports in that it is a beauty contest judged by dimwits. Most of the voters for the Heisman barely follow the sport. They show up for national games and maybe follow the local team. Gerry Callahan of the Boston Herald is a Heisman voter and never watched college football. He is currently unaware of the candidate in his backyard, BC tailback Andrew Williams. Only in sports do we rely on the least informed to pick the winner of the biggest trophy in the sport. Even Hollywood knows better than to rely on journalists for their awards. But, having a BC Eagle in the race has me interested.

The pressing question is should you vote for a guy who may be a rapist? That’s the question for most voters. My guess is 80% of the voters were prepared to vote for Winston. The rest would have voted for Winston, but knowing he was going to win they throw  sympathy vote to a local favorite or a small school player. Voters often use this as a chance to announce their piety. Now it is not so easy as we don’t know if Jameis Winston is a rapist. All we know is he had sex with a woman not his wife or girlfriend and she immediately claimed it was rape. We also know the cops did nothing with it until the press go the story. It could be (probably is) a shake down by a women looking for free money. It could be buyer’s remorse. Women have a habit of regretting one night stands. Modern feminist mythology encourages them to cry rape once they sober up.

The lazy argument, one we’ll see from sports columnists, is that you should only worry about the stuff on the field. I’m sure if Winston stood accused of saying unkind things about homosexuals, Doyle would be leading the charge to keep him off the ballot. Admittedly, I would hold a different view if he were accused of being mean to homosexuals instead of this. I consider rape a serious crime. Saying bad things about queers is unimportant to me. Given what we know and what history tells us, it is hard to imagine the police charging the kid so holding it against him seems wrong. but, there’s that risk. I would be unhappy if I voted for a guy who was subsequently booked on rape.

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