Card: Upper Deck College Legends 2011 Acquired: EBay, 2020
It’s an interesting footnote that Jason White is the last Heisman Trophy Winner since the 40s not to be drafted to play professionally in the NFL. Largely though, most of his accomplishments are embodied in his college career, where he won the National Championship in 2001, and then he later won the Heisman in 2003, and multiple other trophies and accolades throughout his playing time in both 2003 and 2004. Much of White’s lack of NFL interest could be attributed to his injury history, pertaining to his knees, losing both his 2001 and 2002 campaigns largely to ACL injuries.
Jason threw for 3,846 yards on 278 of 451 passing, with 40 TDs to 10 interceptions in his Heisman season of 2003. He attempted to become one of the rare back to back Heisman winners in 2004, throwing for 35 TDs and 3,205 yards- but ultimately lost out to Matt Leinart.
Although going undrafted, Jason eventually was signed by the Tennessee Titans, but thanks in part to his injury history opted not to play. Jason continues to stay close to the sport. He has run a memorabilia and a shoe store for sometime, and his alma mater has honored him with a bronze statue on campus. Eventually Jason has expressed a desire to go into coaching. Largely however, White has flown under the radar.
I like this set, not only because it has a lot of great players in it otherwise not covered, but because it’s really a companion piece to me of Upper Deck Legends 1997. This card didn’t set me back any to acquire, which was surprising because Jason was a Heisman winner.
Card: Upper Deck College Legends 2011 Acquired: 2020, EBay
Pat Devlin split his time playing for the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Delaware Fighting Blue Hens. He made the jump to play for the Blue Hens in 2009, helping guide the team to a 6-5 record while throwing for 16 TDs to 9 interceptions. Along the way he’d break multiple single game, season and career passing records at the school. Pat’s numbers really shone brightly in 2010, as he threw for 3,032 yards, 65.2% completion percentage (261/384) and 22 TDs to just 3 interceptions. Although considered by many to be a fine quarterback, he was not selected in the 2011 NFL Draft.
He signed with the Miami Dolphins and was on the team through 2014, joining the Vikings only briefly that year. The next year, Pat spent about a month with the Bears, and then later the Browns. He retired without throwing an NFL pass. Of note, the UFL tried to make a run at Pat to join their league in 2011, but due to a mandatory contract they were unable to come to terms.
Cards: Topps AAF Certified Player Issue 2011, Upper Deck College Legends 2011 Bowl Game Heroes Acquired: TTM 2020, C/o Home Sent: 4/22/20 Received: 4/29/20 (7 days) See Also: Daryl Johnston, Daryl Johnston (2), Daryl Johnston (3)
I really hustled hard for Daryl Johnston this time around. I had seen on a few sites that he was giving away his player issue version of his certified Topps AAF 2019 card- that I did not have, and along with the fact that he was GM of the Commanders, and it was super expensive on the secondary market, I really wanted to get my paws on that card. I wrote a solid 9 page letter talking about how our lives had intertwined over the last- 30 ish years or so. It was the longest letter I’d ever written to a player.
Daryl has been very good to the TTM community, and as a whole has been a gracious signer outside of those rare instances. Instead of flooding him with cards, I just sent this one Upper Deck College Legends card and asked him for the certified one, since I was a season ticket holder to the Commanders. I was very happy when he responded in no time flat and added the tag #Swords Up! giving the Commanders card a bit of personalization. It gave me a nice bounce in my step for the day.
I had high hopes that he’d pen an inspired response to me about his AAF experience, but the stories that I had read led me to believe that he was caught just as flat footed as the rest of us, even though he was fighting in the trenches everyday for the league. After his AAF experience, Daryl went on to join the XFL 2020 Dallas Renegades, and despite the boasted money behind it, the league folded only after 5 games due to COVID concerns.
Celebrating the game, the players, the cards, and the autographs for over 25 years.
