By Mike Lopresti

The 2001 Heisman winner is not a football player anymore. He has a wife and a daughter, dabbles in television, and watches the games on the weekend. Sometimes he wishes he was still out there, and sometimes he doesn't.

"Everyone has different goals," Eric Crouch said over the phone from Omaha. "Just because you win the Heisman, doesn't mean you're supposed to have a long NFL career."

Ain't it the truth? Crouch is a member of an ultra-exclusive club. Only 67 men ever born have been handed the Heisman trophy. The fine print of the award is how many of its recipients struggle to make a living at the game. Especially lately.

From the night they stand at the podium, the road forks. One way to stardom, which is more or less expected of them. The other to the place where the cheering suddenly stops.

Chris Weinke (2000) has not thrown a pass in the NFL this season. Neither has Danny Wuerffel (1996). Ron Dayne (1999) has not gained a yard. Carson Palmer (2002) is third string as a rookie, and asked to be patient. Anyone seen Rashaan Salaam (1994) or Gino Torretta (1992)?

Their names show up on the list that inevitably gets repeated this time of year. Heisman Busts. It is a peculiar legacy, and in many ways an unfair and merciless one. As if they are supposed to return their statues, like sweaters that did not fit.

Eric Crouch is on the list, too. No Heisman winner has disappeared more quickly.

He won the Heisman as Nebraska's do-it-all quarterback in 2001, passing for seven touchdowns and running for 18. That was only two years ago. And now, when it comes to football, he is already a memory. He did not play a down in the NFL. The guess is he never will.

He aborted his first training camp with St. Louis in 2002, unable to make the adjustment to receiver. He terminated his second training camp with Green Bay this past summer, sensing the handwriting was on the wall about making the roster as a quarterback.

Maybe he could have gone to Europe to play. Instead, he went home to Nebraska. He remains there still, a weekend analyst for Cornhusker football. A family man wondering what to do with his life.

"Most 25 year-olds go through the same thing I am. I'm no different," he said. "You're trying to figure out what to do."

Maybe a whack at Canadian football? Or the arena league, before it's too late?

"I don't know yet. ... Some days I want to pick up a football and go throw it. Other days I don't."

The ambivalence is deafening. He does not sound like a man hungry to return to the game. He sounds like a man waiting for answers. His Heisman trophy is at his mother's. His future is in limbo.

But he will be watching Saturday night, when the 68th man joins the club, listens to the applause, and then faces the uncertain path that comes afterward.

"You almost pretend like you're there again," Crouch said. "You have the same feelings you had when you won it. Then you're excited for the next guy. If I could give him any advice, it would be to absorb it all as much as he can. Before you know it, it's come, and gone."

Especially for Eric Crouch. But he is a Heisman winner and always will be. No list will ever tarnish that. No disparagement of an NFL career that never began.

"Not at all," he said. "I'm the only one who has to decide my life. I'm the only one who has to look at himself in the mirror every day."