Remembering that rarefied Ware
It’s been 30 years since Cougars great put up crazy numbers to become first black QB to win Heisman
Andre Ware walks through the door, his right arm wrapped around the most famous piece of bronze in college football.
At a nearby table, Texans play-by-play broadcaster Marc Vandermeer jokes with a radio audience and crowd — gathered at Fuddruckers for some football talk and photo-ops — that Ware has been said to “carry the Heisman Trophy everywhere he goes … and apparently it’s true.”
“I get accused of riding with it attached to the hood of my car,” Ware said.
Thirty years later, Ware and the Heisman Trophy are still attached.
On Dec. 2, 1989, Ware, the quarterback for the University of Houston, capped off one of the greatest individual offensive seasons in college football history when he won the Heisman, awarded to the nation’s outstanding player.
“My life changed that day in a major way,” said Ware, 51. “You’re no longer Andre Ware. You’re Andre Ware, the Heisman Trophy winner.”
Ware won the award by 70 points over Indiana running back Anthony Thompson on the strength of a record-setting passing season that was seen by few outside Houston. The Cougars were on probation — for recruiting violations that occurred years before Ware and his teammates ever stepped on campus — and did not appear on television or play in a bowl game.
On the day of the announcement, Ware was not in attendance at the Downtown Athletic Club. Instead, Ware played what would be his final college game, throwing for 400 yards and two touchdowns in a 64-0 win over Rice. Ware’s mother, Joyce, attended the ceremony in New York City while the junior quarterback, a few teammates and UH coach Jack Pardee, watched from a cramped office inside Rice Stadium.
“Anything’s possible,” Ware said by satellite hookup shortly after the announcement.
‘Right time at the right place’
Soon after, Ware walked down the tunnel and was greeted by a large group of UH supporters that had remained at Rice Stadium during the announcement.
“I was still out on the field when I heard the big loud cheer,” said running back Chuck Weatherspoon. “You could see Andre grinning from ear to ear.”
A few miles down the road, a video operator relayed the news to the crowd attending a high school playoff game at the Astrodome.
“He did it! Andre Ware won the Heisman!” flashed across the scoreboard.
Reflecting recently on the 30-year anniversary of his Heisman victory, Ware said it was a matter of “right time at the right place” to be at the controls of the Cougars’ run-and-shoot offense,
And what a historic season it was:
• 365 completions
• 578 pass attempts
• 4,699 yards
• 46 touchdowns
• 26 NCAA records
Ware piled up all the numbers while sitting out the second half in several games and playing the equivalent of eight of UH’s 11 games.
There was no Heisman campaign. No cute gimmicks or mailouts. Ted Nance, UH’s sports information director at the time, simply sent out Ware’s stats each week to national media.
“It was unheard of for us to score 60, 70, 80 points on any given day,” Weatherspoon said.
Ware threw for 390 yards and five TDs in a 69-0 win over UNLV in the season opener. He had 503 passing yards against Arizona State. Threw seven TD passes against Temple. Piled up 514 yards and six scores in a 6610 rout of Baylor.
Mike Holley, a starting guard for the 1989 Cougars, said the lack of attention because of the TV ban made Ware “a long shot” to win the Heisman. But as the Cougars continued to pile up points, the buzz intensified.
“(After the Baylor game), that was the first time I really remember we knew damn good and well we had something special,” Holley said.
Against SMU, coming off the NCAA “death penalty” and featuring a roster comprised mostly of freshmen, Ware had 517 yards passing and six touchdowns — all in the first half — as the Cougars rolled to 1,021 total yards in a 95-21 victory.
“Take off your shoulder pads and leave them in the locker room,” Pardee told Ware at halftime.
UH lost only two games all season — 17-13 against Texas A&M when Ware threw three interceptions and was sacked six times and 45-39 in a shootout with Arkansas.
The Cougars won their final four games by an average 42 points, including a 47-9 blowout of Texas in the Astrodome. As the Cougars kept piling up yards, points and wins, Ware could sense something special in the making.
“Once everybody started talking about it and it somewhat became a possibility, I was trying to drown out the noise,” said Ware, inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. “(My teammates) started playing hard. Every week you could see the intensity start to grow.”
During the ’89 season, the Cougars became the first FBS team to have a 4,000yard passer (Ware), 1,000-yard rusher (Weatherspoon) and 1,000-yard receiver (Manny Hazard). UH’s average of 624.9 total yards per game remains an FBS record.
Of all his highlights, Ware said one remains his favorite — his over-the-shoulder catch on a pass from David Klingler against the Longhorns. An option quarterback at Dickinson — he had only one touchdown pass his senior season — Ware grew up a UT fan and was recruited by the Longhorns, not as a quarterback, but a defensive back.
“I was going to Texas,” Ware once told ESPN. “All they had to do was lie to me and tell me I was going to play quarterback once I got there. Thank goodness they told me the truth that they were going to move me to defense.”
Ware was ruled ineligible for his freshman season in 1986 — he had not taken the SAT on an NCAA-approved date — and attended Alvin Community College for one year. His arrival on the UH campus the following season coincided with the arrival of Pardee and offensive coordinator John Jenkins.
The assault on the record books was not far away.
‘Part of a small fraternity’
These days, Ware is in his 18th year as the radio analyst for Texans games and serving as a college football analyst for ESPN.
Earlier this season during a telecast, TV partner Kevin Brown left Ware speechless.
“You become a part of a small fraternity,” Ware said of winning the Heisman. “Kevin Brown said there’s only 80 in 150 years of college football. That kind of puts it in perspective. I had to pause for a second. That’s pretty good company.”
Ware also represented another significant milestone as the first African American quarterback to win the Heisman. Seven black quarterbacks have won since — Charlie Ward, Troy Smith, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Jameis Winston, Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray.
“If you are the first to do something, you feel pretty good about it,” Ware said. “But if you can open the door for others to follow, that really adds some significance.”
For two years, Ware’s Heisman was on display at a bank in his hometown of Dickinson. Today, it resides on a shelf at his home, a reminder of the impact Ware and UH had in college football history.
“Perfect ending to a great season,” Ware said. “To be able to share (it) with my teammates was perfect. We all won it together. It was a brotherhood like no other. It was a special team I played on.”