Former USC star White lives a life apart from his Heisman

A report that the Heisman Trophy won by Charles White will be sold to the highest bidder next month comes as news to Charles White.

He hawked it years ago.

"That thing's been gone a long time," says the former USC tailback, who won college football's most coveted individual honor in 1979. "I needed some money for my five kids when I got out of football. I had to do something. . . .

"People have to do what they got to do. In my situation, hey, either I sell that trophy or my family don't eat."

White, 50, sold the trophy in 2000 to settle tax debts, he said at the time, telling the Orange County Register, "Uncle Sam . . . can make life miserable for you." It fetched $184,000 at auction, then was auctioned again in December 2006 and sold to an undisclosed West Coast collector for $293,750.

It will be up for bid again Dec. 8 at the Sports Museum of America in New York, Illinois-based Mastro Auctions announced this month.

To some, it's a painful reminder that White let it go.

"It's sad," says USC broadcaster and former Trojans quarterback Paul McDonald, whose four seasons with White netted a national championship in 1978 and three Rose Bowl victories. "He's had his challenges in life; we all have. But he deserves to have that trophy in his possession, bottom line."

Says John Robinson, who coached White at USC and with the Los Angeles Rams, "I would have loved for him to be able to give it to his grandkids, so I feel badly for him. But when you're in trouble financially, you've got to do something."

No worries, White says.

"Those days are so far behind me," says the two-time All-American. "I wouldn't have sold it if I didn't have to, but I'm always going to have the Heisman Trophy in my hands -- or in my heart, I should say.

"It ain't about a statue or a trophy."

Plus, White notes, "they also give you a ring, a nice ring. Diamonds. I'm not a jewelry person, but every now and then I'll take it out and show it off and stuff. That's like the trophy to me. I haven't got rid of that.

"When I die, it's going to my family, going to my boys."

At least six other Heisman trophies have been sold, according to Mike Hefner, president of the New York auction house Lelands.com.

Most famously, the trophy won by O.J. Simpson in 1968 was auctioned for $230,000 in 1999 after a civil trial found the former USC tailback liable in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson's property was seized to help pay off a $33.5-million judgment against him.