Weinke Wins Heisman Trophy

N E W  Y O R K, Dec. 9 -- Chris Weinke capped a remarkable back-to-schoolstory tonight when the 28-year-old Florida State quarterbackwon the Heisman Trophy in one of the closest votes in the historyof the award.

Weinke, who spent six years playing minor league baseball beforereturning to school in 1997, finished off a record-setting seasonby leading the Seminoles into an Orange Bowl matchup against No. 1Oklahoma with a chance for a second straight national championship.

“With apologies to Lou Gehrig, I feel like I’m the luckiest manin the world,” Weinke said. “I got to pursue two dreams. Thefirst one, baseball, didn’t work out the way I would have liked.But the second one, football, did.”

When his name was called, Weinke, wearing a blue suit and silvertie and sitting next to Heupel, smiled, stood up and walked to thepodium to accept the 25-pound bronze trophy.

The 6-foot-5, 229-pounder from St. Paul, Minn., led the nationwith a school-record 4,167 yards passing, threw 33 touchdown passesand had only 11 interceptions. He recovered from a serious neckinjury late in the ’98 season to become the Atlantic CoastConference’s career passing leader with 9,839 yards.

Close Vote

Weinke edged Oklahoma quarterback Josh Heupel for collegefootball’s most coveted individual prize by 76 points in theseventh tightest Heisman race. The closest Heisman vote was BoJackson’s 45-point victory over Chuck Long in 1985.

Weinke had 369 first-place votes and 1,628 points; Heupel, wholed the Sooners to the title game against the Seminoles by passingfor 3,392 yards and 20 touchdowns, had 286 first-place votes and1,552 points.

Purdue quarterback Drew Brees was third, TCU running backLaDainian Tomlinson was fourth and Northwestern running back DamienAnderson was fifth in balloting by the 922 Heisman voters.

A breakdown of the voting showed Weinke won four of the sixregions—the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, the South and the Midwest.Heupel won the Southwest and the West.