Andre Trevor Ware (born July 31, 1968) is an American

sports analyst A sports analyst is a person looking through technical, tactical, physiological, and psychological performance metrics /sup> working with the sports coach and sports science team to improve athlete performance. They will often use Video motion ...

and commentator and a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player. He was the 1989 Heisman Trophy and Davey O'Brien Award winner as a

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...

. He was the first Black American quarterback to receive the Heisman. In the

1990 NFL Draft The 1990 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 22–23, 1990, at the Marriott Mar ...

, Ware was the first round selection (#7 overall) of the Detroit Lions. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004.

College career

Ware grew up in the Galveston, Texas region, hoping to play football at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. He said "I was going to Texas. 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

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

they were going to move me to defense". After graduating from Dickinson High School, Ware instead played at the

, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1989, along with the Davey O'Brien Award, the latter award given to the most outstanding college quarterback of the year. That season - his junior year - averaging 52 passes per contest, he threw for 4,699 yards (427.18 yds/g or 127 yds/quarter), 46 touchdowns, and set 26

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

records over the span of 11 games, seven of which he sat during the fourth quarter. Many of the records (including the notable 340 yards/5 TDs in the first quarter and 517 yards/6 TDs thrown in one half, set on October 21, 1989) were thanks to the innovative use of the

run and shoot offense The run and shoot offense (also known as Run N' Shoot) is an offensive system for American football which emphasizes receiver motion and on-the-fly adjustments of receivers' routes in response to different defenses. It was conceived by former ...

, which his successor, David Klingler, also used to great effect. The Cougars ended the season 9-2 and ranked the #14 team in the nation by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

, but were on probation, making Ware the only quarterback to win the Heisman while playing for a team on probation. He then declared for the

NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

, foregoing his senior year.

Professional football career

Ware became the top draft pick of the Detroit Lions when head coach

Wayne Fontes Wayne Fontes (; born February 2, 1940) is a former American football coach and college and professional football player who was the head coach of the National Football League's Detroit Lions from 1988 to 1996. His 67 wins and 71 losses are each t ...

overrode the advice of the team's scouting director, who resigned the next day. Ware joined the Lions for the 1990 season, teaming with the previous Heisman Trophy winner from 1988,

Barry Sanders Barry Sanders (born July 16, 1968) is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL), from 1989 to 1998 for the Detroit Lions. Sanders led the league in rushing yards four times and ...

. Ware spent four years with Detroit, playing 14 games and starting six: Coach Fontes insisted on starting the oft-injured Rodney Peete, and usually replacing Peete with Erik Kramer when Peete was hurt or played poorly. Fontes generally only played Ware when the Lions were out of the playoffs or already losing a game by a wide margin. Ware's best stretch came late in the 1992 season when the Lions were out of the playoffs: he won two of three games. He began

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

on the roster of the

Los Angeles Raiders The Los Angeles Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994 before relocating back to Oakland, California, where the team played from its inaugural 1960 season to the 1981 season and then agai ...

, but was released after several games. In 1995, he was signed by the

Jacksonville Jaguars The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jaguars compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. The team pla ...

, one of the NFL's two expansion teams that year. As a former Heisman Trophy winner, Ware's presence gathered much local excitement in Jacksonville, but ultimately, Ware was cut from the team the week before the regular season began. It is debated why Ware failed in the NFL despite a prolific college career. While some have argued that Ware's coaches never gave him a fair chance to develop, others have noticed that he was unable to adapt to an offensive system other than the run-and-shoot offense at Houston. Ware also played in the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

with the Ottawa Rough Riders, the

BC Lions The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place. The Lions played their first seas ...

and the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

(where he backed up fellow Heisman winner

Doug Flutie Douglas Richard Flutie (born October 23, 1962) is an American former football quarterback whose professional career spanned 21 seasons. He played 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), eight seasons in the Canadian Football League (CF ...

). He spent five games with the

Berlin Thunder The Berlin Thunder were a professional American football team in NFL Europe. History The Thunder came into existence as an expansion team, after the London/England Monarchs franchise shut down operations, prior to the 1999 season. Home games ...

, a German NFL Europe team.

Broadcaster

Since 2002, Ware has been a part of the Houston Texans' radio broadcast team with Marc Vandermeer. Since 2003, Ware has been a college football analyst for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

. From 2003 until 2008, he called games on

, ESPN2 and

ESPN on ABC ESPN on ABC (formerly known as ABC Sports from 1961 to 2006) is the branding used for sports event and documentary programming televised by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States. Officially, the broadcast network retains ...

. In July 2009, ESPN announced that Ware would team up with long-time SEC broadcaster

Dave Neal Dave Neal, son of Bob Neal and Melody Gadziala, is a two-time Emmy Award winning American sportscaster currently employed by ESPN. He has 2 sons, Sam and Lil Pete. He is from Atlanta, Georgia and attended Lakeside High School. Broadcast caree ...

in the fall of 2009 as color commentator for

ESPN Regional Television ESPN Events is an American multinational sporting event promoter owned by ESPN Inc. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and shares its operations with SEC Network and formerly with ESPNU. The corporation organizes sporting events f ...

's coverage of

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

Football. Ware continued in this role until 2013. From 2014 through 2019, he called games for ESPN's

SEC Network The SEC Network is an American multinational sports network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which operates the network, through its 80% controlling ownership interest) and Hearst Communications (which holds ...

, then joined the

ESPN College Football Friday Primetime ''ESPN College Football Friday Primetime'' is a live game presentation of Division I-FBS college football on ESPN or sometimes ESPN2 and ESPNU. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, games air on ABC. There is no main sponsor. The game telecast air ...

team in 2020.

Honors

In 2004, Ware was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. On February 29, 2012, he was inducted into the

Texas Sports Hall of Fame The Texas Sports Hall of Fame recognizes athletes, coaches, and administrators who have made "lasting fame and honor to Texas sports". It was established in 1951 by the Texas Sports Writers Association. Once it made its first induction (baseball ...

. Other members of his class include

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

Women's basketball Coach Gary Blair, Shawn Andaya, University of Texas Football Coach Mack Brown, Fred Couples, Coach

Lovie Smith Lovie Lee Smith (born May 8, 1958) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Houston Texans of the National Football League (NFL). From 2004 to 2016, he served as the head coach of the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a ...

, G. A. Moore,

Bubba Smith Charles Aaron Smith (February 28, 1945 – August 3, 2011), commonly known as Bubba Smith, was an American football defensive end and actor. He first came into prominence at Michigan State University, where he twice earned All-American hon ...

Dave Parks David Wayne Parks (December 25, 1941 – August 8, 2019) was an American football wide receiver and tight end in the NFL. He was the first overall selection in the 1964 NFL Draft out of Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University). P ...

, and

Tobin Rote Tobin Cornelius Rote (January 18, 1928 – June 27, 2000) was an American football player who played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football Le ...

References

External links