Nebraska’s Dave Rimington discusses the history of the trophy that bears his name and explains how the award winner is determined every year. (Run time is 4:52; transcription below the jump).
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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com. I’m joined by Nebraska’s Dave Rimington. Dave thanks for joining us.
I was wondering how the Dave Rimington award started. I know it was first handed out in 2000 and I was wondering did they approach you or did you come up with the idea? How does one come up with an award named after them?
Dave Rimington: (Laughing) Well that’s a good question. I was being interviewed about the Outland Trophy and the guy said where was the Outland Trophy now, where was the presentation and it’s in Omaha. He mentioned offhand that ‘Maybe they should have an award named after you.’ And he contacted Boomer and that’s how it started. It’s a way to shed light on the center position and to raise funds for cystic fibrosis and it’s worked out pretty well.
This is our 11th presentation and the tenth time we have the ceremony so we’re pretty excited about it and we’re looking forward to this year’s award which will be in the Rococo Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 16.
LL: How did you come up with the trophy for the Rimington Award? Were you involved in the design of that?
DR: Yes I was. A good friend of mine is Marc Mellon. He’s a sculptor here in New York City. He was a sculptor for the NBA MVP Award. We became good friends. He’s done some work with the foundation for our MVP award that we give out to some of the best contributors for the year. So we approached him and he put it together and I had some input in it. We had our first winner … we actually had our first winner before we had the trophy and Dominic Raiola was one of the models for that award.
LL: What’s it like as an honor to have an award after you with some of the guys that are college football legends like John Heisman, Davey O’Brien? Guys like that, that are so much older and a lot of them passed away already.
DR: Well it’s strange because of the fact that I was in my 40’s. I guess I was 38 when we started this thing and it was kind of strange that way and it’s taken some time to gain some acceptance because of the fact I’m a younger guy and I wasn’t passed away like most of the (other names) were.
So it’s kind of humbling. I don’t really talk about the award too much unless somebody’s asks me because I feel like sometimes it’s like throwing your own birthday party is basically what I feel like. It’s quite and honor and I’m lucky to had a great team and great teammates around me when I played at Nebraska. And the main thing is that there were only three winners: myself, Jim Richter and I’m drawing a blank on the third one but he was from Pennsylvania University were the only college football award winners that played the center position since 1935. So it was needed as far as recognition of the center position.
I’m not saying that because I played it but it is one of the most important positions on the field. You have control of the football on every single play and you’re never backside, you’re always front side. And if you’re on a throwing team, your quarterback is setting up right behind you. So there’s a lot of pressure on you to perform.
LL: Great. I know a lot of these awards have a watch list and they kind of narrow it down to finalists. Is there a group of finalists for the Rimington Award yet?
DR: Well the finalists will be announced around Thanksgiving. Our award is based on four different All-American teams: the football writers, coaches, Newsday and the Walter Camp. And the consensus All-American of those four groups will be named the Rimington Trophy winner. So, unlike most awards that have a vote, this is pretty much whoever is consensus All American will get the award.
LL: OK. Is there a favorite for this year or do you not want to get into the voting?
DR: (Laughing) Well this is kind of a strange year because there wasn’t any returning … I think all the finalists last year were seniors, if I’m right here, and so there isn’t really a front runner. So it’s going to be interesting to see how everybody votes for all these All-American teams and how it shakes out.
LL: OK, thanks so much for your time Dave and we’ll speak to you again soon.
DR: Well thank you Jim, take care.
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Arguably the greatest college center of all-time, Dave Rimington is now the president of the Boomer Esiason Foundation that fights cystic fibrosis.
Got a question or comment? E-mail him here
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