Jim Thorpe Award Winners Year by Year

Every year, the top defensive back in college football is awarded the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award, which is determined by three factors: character, athleticism, and on-field performance. The Paycom Jim Thorpe Award honors multisport athlete Jim Thorpe.

Thirty-five of the top defensive backs in the country, from ten conferences and one independent, are on this preseason watch list. In Oklahoma City, the official Paycom Jim Thorpe Award presentation takes place after the Home Depot College Football Awards. The award was renamed the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award in 2017 after Paycom began to sponsor it.

Every year, all past winners and the winners are invited to celebrate. On an annual basis, more than 500 supporters, including a number of dignitaries and celebrities, attend the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Banquet. The Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame casts votes on it.

Jim Thorpe Award’s History

One of the most sought-after awards from the National College Football Awards Association is the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award, which is given to the best defensive back in college football each year. The award was founded in 1986 and was won by Baylor’s Thomas Everett.

Jim Thorpe was a native of Oklahoma and a multi-sport star who won numerous awards, including two gold medals at the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912. His medals were controversially taken away from him in 1913 because of doubts about his amateur status. But Thorpe's legacy was formally restored when he was reinstituted as the pentathlon and decathlon's only winner in July 2022.

According to Paycom’s official website, they are an Oklahoma-based business that values innovation and is pleased to support the Jim Thorpe Award, which honors one of the real trailblazers.

The 2023 Jim Thorpe Award Winner

The winner of the 2023 Paycom Jim Thorpe Award was Trey Taylor of the United States Air Force Academy Falcons. The Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame presented sponsor Paycom with Taylor's 2023 honor.

Taylor joins 1987 Outland Trophy winner Chad Hennings as the only Falcons to win a major college football award. He is the first-ever Air Force Thorpe Award winner. In the nationwide voting, Taylor's average rank won by a mere 0.12 points over the runner-up, despite leading the total ballots as a 47% favorite for first place.

Taylor had his best season yet with the Falcons, recording 71 tackles, three interceptions, four PBUs, a first-career touchdown, and four TFLs in four games. He was selected for the First Team All-MW at safety. Taylor earned an overall Pro Football Focus grade of 82.6 after allowing only 18 receptions on 31 targets for an average of 10.1 yards per reception.

In Oklahoma City on February 6, 2024, on the 38th anniversary of the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Banquet, Taylor was honored by the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and Paycom.

Who is Jim Thorpe?

James Francis Thorpe, who won an Olympic gold medal, was born on May 22 or 28, 1887, and passed away on March 28, 1953. Thorpe, a Sac and Fox Nation member, was the first American Native to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

Thorpe is regarded as one of the most adaptable athletes in contemporary sports, having won two gold medals at the Summer Olympics in 1912 (one each in decathlon and classic pentathlon). In addition, he participated in professional baseball, basketball, and collegiate and professional football.

After it was discovered that he had broken the rules of modern amateurism by accepting payment to play two seasons of semi-professional baseball prior to the Olympics, he lost his Olympic titles. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) replaced his original Olympic medals with replicas in 1983, thirty years after his passing, on the grounds that the decision to deprive him of them had not been made within the required 30 days.

Thorpe served as the American Professional Football Association's first president from 1920 to 1921. The league changed its name to the NFL in 1922. He continued to play professional sports until he was 41 years old, ending just as the Great Depression was beginning. After that, he had difficulty making ends meet and took on a variety of odd jobs. His final years were spent in poverty and deteriorating health due to his alcoholism. Prior to his heart failure and death in 1953, he had eight children from three marriages.

In recognition of his sporting achievements, Thorpe has won various awards. He was named the "greatest athlete" of the first 50 years of the 20th century by the Associated Press, and in 1963, he was admitted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of its first class.

Jim Thorpe Award Winners by Program

The Jim Thorpe Award was won three times each by Oklahoma (1987, 2001, 2003) and LSU (2010, 2011, 2019). The teams that won the Jim Thorpe Award twice each were TCU, Alabama, USC, Ohio State, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Florida State.

The Jim Thorpe Award was won once each by the Air Force, Baylor, Cincinnati, Georgia, Iowa, Louisville, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Auburn, Kansas State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Colorado State, Miami (FL), and the Air Force.

List of Jim Thorpe Award Winners, Year by Year

Here you can find a list of all the Jim Thorpe Award Winners listed below:-