From Rolex watch to raising money for food banks, LSU’s Burrow embraces O’Brien Award
Joe Burrow has gotten plenty of hardware and bling of late.
He won the Heisman Trophy, throwing for an SEC-record 48 touchdowns in the regular season. He then carried the LSU Tigers to the national championship, which prompted Boosie — a popular rapper from Baton Rouge — to give him a chain.
The gifts haven’t stopped coming his way, either.
The latest is a Rolex watch that Burrow received on Monday as part of winning the Davey O’Brien Award for the 2019 season.
He was fitted for the watch at Haltom’s Jewelers in downtown Fort Worth on Monday afternoon, just hours before he formally accepted the Davey O’Brien Award at the Fort Worth Club.
More than the Rolex, though, Burrow loved the gesture made by Haltom’s in donating $5,000 to local food banks ($2,500 to the Tarrant Area Food Bank and $2,500 to the Athens County Food Pantry in Ohio) in Burrow’s name.
“That was awesome,” Burrow said. “The fact that they’ll do that shows the kind of people who are here and that’s why I’m excited.”
Burrow brought awareness to his hometown food bank during his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech, describing how impoverished Southeast Ohio is with “the poverty rate almost two times the national average.”
That mention generated almost $500,000 in donations to the Athens County Food Pantry. Burrow didn’t know that mention would have such a significant impact at the time.
“I just said it because that’s what I was feeling at the time,” Burrow said. “I didn’t write the speech. I just had some bullet points on paper and bullet points in my mind that I wanted to talk about. I wanted to make it feel like every part of my journey was mentioned. It’s what got me to this point.
“I wanted to make it feel like everyone who had got me there won that award at the same time. I was just talking from the heart. The fact that people came out and donated the way they did, it’s incredible for the area and made me proud.”
The message hit home with Haltom’s owner Jack Miller, as that’s been a charitable cause close to his heart for decades.
A judge ordered Miller to do community service hours once at a local food bank and he saw first-hand the positive impact it made on families.
“I learned how many tens of thousands of children don’t eat from Friday at school until Monday at school,” Miller said. “It was coincidental that Joe Burrow called that out during his Heisman speech, so we thought it’d be a cool thing to not only give him a watch, which is our honor and privilege to do, but also make a donation to the food banks.”
Elite company
Burrow’s jersey and display in the Davey O’Brien Hall of Fame is next to those of former Nebraska great Eric Crouch.
Burrow’s father, Jimmy, served as a graduate assistant on Nebraska’s staff during Crouch’s Heisman Trophy and Davey O’Brien-winning season in 2001.
Jimmy has a picture of Joe and Crouch together from that season, although that’s not a vivid memory for Joe. After all, he was 4 years old at the time.
The only thing Joe remembers from that season is the 2002 Rose Bowl parade when Nebraska faced Miami in the national championship.
“At the Rose Bowl parade, there was a dinosaur float,” he said, smiling. “I was really into dinosaurs, so I was really fired up about that.”
All joking aside, Burrow is pleased to join the elite O’Brien Award fraternity of quarterbacks alongside former winners such as Crouch and consecutive No. 1 picks Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.
Burrow is also the first player from LSU to win the prestigious award.
It became another signature moment for the Burrow family. His parents couldn’t have been happier to see their son win the award.
“His name being in the company of other Davey O’Brien winners is really amazing,” said Robin Burrow, Joe’s mother. “There’s a lot of unbelievable athletes on that list, so it’s very humbling.”
Added his father Jimmy: “It’s special for Joe and special for us as parents, too. The Davey O’Brien is quarterback-specific, so it’s even more special to him because of the quarterbacks who have received the award.”
Along with Burrow, other honorees included former No. 1 overall pick Steve Bartkowski as the Davey O’Brien Legends Award recipient and Denton Guyer’s Kaedric Cobbs as the high school scholarship winner.
Of course, both raved about being associated with Burrow in some fashion following his sensational season.
“It’s amazing to be here,” said Cobbs, who has signed a letter of intent with UT San Antonio. “I’m not going to lie, I never thought I was going to be actually to come face to face with Joe Burrow. It’s just really cool to be up here with him.”
Said Bartkowski: “He was wheelin’ and dealin’ out there. You’re only as good as the guys around you. Incredible team. Incredible coaching. All he did was do what he did.”
Looking back
Burrow served as the headliner for the event. After all, he is coming off a season in which he threw for 5,671 yards with 60 touchdowns and six interceptions.
That’s arguably the greatest college season by a quarterback in history. Where did it all start?
Most might point to the Sept. 7 game at Texas. Burrow made a strong statement, throwing for 471 yards and four touchdowns in LSU’s 45-38 victory in Austin.
The play from the game that is etched in LSU lore is a third-and-17 late in which Burrow evaded Texas’ pass rush long enough to find Justin Jefferson, who sprinted 61 yards for a game-sealing touchdown.
“I knew Texas would bring zero blitz, so if I bought a little time, I was going to have somebody open,” Burrow said, recalling the play. “So I was able to buy a little time in the pocket, we had four verticals called and my guy got open for me and I hit him.”
That victory set the table for the rest of the season.
As Burrow said, “I think what it showed us, we were really still waiting to see if we were going to do what we had done in fall camp and spring ball, which is throw the ball around the entire time. We go out and throw the ball 40 times for however many yards, however many touchdowns, and it kind of showed us the kind of team we were going to be.”
That team proved to be the best in the country with the best quarterback in Burrow.
This story was originally published February 17, 2020 at 6:49 PM.
