On a cold January day in 2021, Fernando Mendoza and his family toured Yale’s football facilities, taking in a jam-packed slate of activities arranged for the five Mendoza visitors.
Amid the pageantry sat college football’s most coveted prize: the Heisman Trophy. Eighty-four years had passed since Clint Frank won the award in 1937, but Mendoza was awestruck, pausing to pose for a photo beside the bronze stiff-arm.
Little did anyone in the room know it wouldn’t be the last time he stood next to the trophy. The former Yale commit will have an opportunity to recreate the photo on Saturday – this time, in New York City, as a finalist for the Heisman.