OKLAHOMA CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 26, 2024--
Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame (OSHOF) and Jim Thorpe Association is proud to release the finalists for the 2024 Paycom Jim Thorpe Award. This list includes the nation’s three best defensive backs based on performance on the field, athletic ability and character.
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Texas’ Jahdae Barron, Ohio State’s Caleb Downs and Georgia’s Malaki Starks are the three defensive backs chosen as the 2024 finalists. This group of finalists represents two Power Five conferences in the Big Ten and SEC.
Jahdae Barron
University of Texas
Cornerback, Sr.
41 tackles (27 solo, 14 assisted), 10 defensive stops, 4 interceptions (65 yards), 5 pass breakups, 8 passes defended, 1 fumble return, 1 sack, 2 QB hurries
(started 11 games, 617 total snaps, 47 receiving targets)
Caleb Downs
The Ohio State University
Safety, So.
51 tackles (30 solo, 21 assisted), 6.5 TFLs, 19 defensive stops, 3 pass breakups, 3 passes defended, 1 sack, 2 QB hurries, 1 punt return touchdown
(started 11 games, 592 total snaps, 20 receiving targets)
Malaki Starks
University of Georgia
Safety, Jr.
55 tackles (35 solo, 20 assisted), 14 defensive stops, 1 interception (0 yards), 2 pass breakups, 2 passes defended, 2 QB hurries
(started 11 games, 672 total snaps, 36 receiving targets)
The award recipient is selected from the three finalists by the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award National Selection Committee, which boasts an Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in-house award committee, former Paycom Jim Thorpe Award recipients, members of the NCFAA and sports writers and college football journalists throughout the country.
Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Finalists Fan Vote
For the seventh consecutive season, the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award will hold the official Finalists Fan Vote. Voting opens Tuesday, Nov. 26 at 6 p.m. EST and closes Friday, Dec. 6 at 6 p.m. EST. Voting is free to all participants. The winner of the fan vote will receive one vote toward the overall nationwide results. Use the link below to be directed to the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Finalists Fan Vote.
https://www.paycom.com/about/sponsorships/jim-thorpe-award/
The Paycom Jim Thorpe Award is a member of the National College Football Awards Association. Founded in 1997, the NCFAA includes college football’s most prestigious awards, and its 24 awards have honored more than 900 recipients dating back to 1935. This season, 13 NCFAA awards will honor national players of the week each Tuesday. For more information about the NCFAA and its award programs, visit NCFAA.org or follow on X at @NCFAA.
Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Important Dates
Thu., Dec 12: Winner Announced on The Home Depot College Football Awards
The winner will be announced on the ESPN live presentation of The Home Depot College Football Awards. Other recognized NCFAA awards announced include the Bednarik Award, Maxwell Award, Mackey Award, Rimington Trophy, Lou Groza Award, Ray Guy Award, Bronko Nagurski Award, Outland Trophy, Butkus Award, Lombardi Award, Biletnikoff Award, Davey O’Brien Award, Doak Walker Award, Walter Camp Award and others.
Tue., Feb. 4, 2025: Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Banquet Honoring the 2024 Winner in Oklahoma City
The official presentation of the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award takes place in Oklahoma City, following The Home Depot College Football Awards. The current winner and all former winners are invited each year to celebrate. Over 600 supporters attend the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Banquet each year, including many celebrities and dignitaries.
For more information on the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award and past award recipients, please visitoklahomasportshalloffame.org.
The Paycom Jim Thorpe Award is awarded to the best defensive back in college football based on performance on the field, athletic ability and character. The award was established in 1986 and is named after history’s greatest all-around athlete, Jim Thorpe. Thorpe excelled as a running back, passer and kicker on the offensive side of the ball, but also stood out as a defensive back. In addition to his legendary performance on the football field, Thorpe played professional baseball and won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon. The Paycom Jim Thorpe Award is universally accepted as one of the nation’s top collegiate sports honors.
Paycom Software, Inc. (NYSE: PAYC) (“Paycom”), a leading provider of comprehensive, cloud-based human capital management software, and the Jim Thorpe Museum and Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame jointly announced in May 2017 an exclusive sponsorship of the Jim Thorpe Award. As a result, the accolade has been named the “Paycom Jim Thorpe Award.”
Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame (OSHOF) and Jim Thorpe Association is proud to release the finalists for the 2024 Paycom Jim Thorpe Award. (Graphic: Business Wire)
NEW YORK (AP) — As she anticipates her estranged uncle's return to the White House, Mary Trump isn't expecting any future book to catch on like such first-term tell-alls as Michael Wolff's million-selling “Fire and Fury” or her own blockbuster, “Too Much and Never Enough.”
“What else is there to learn?” she says. “And for people who don't know, the books have been written. It's all really out in the open now.”
For publishers, Donald Trump's presidential years were a time of extraordinary sales in political books, helped in part by Trump's legal threats and angered tweets. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the hardcover and paperback market, the genre's sales nearly doubled from 2015 to 2020, from around 5 million copies to around 10 million.
Besides books by Wolff and Trump, other bestsellers included former FBI Director James Comey's “A Higher Loyalty,” former national security adviser John Bolton's “The Room Where it Happened” and Bob Woodward's “Fear.” Meanwhile, sales for dystopian fiction also jumped, led by Margaret Atwood's “A Handmaid's Tale,” which was adapted into an award-winning Hulu series.
But interest has dropped back to 2015 levels since Trump left office, according to Circana, and publishers doubt it will again peak so highly. Readers not only showed little interest in books by or about President Joe Biden and his family — they even seemed less excited about Trump-related releases. Mary Trump's “Who Could Ever Love You” and Woodward's “War” were both popular this fall, but neither has matched the sales of their books written during the first Trump administration.
“We’ve been there many times, with all those books,” HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham says of the various Trump tell-alls. He added that he still sees a market for at least some Trump books — perhaps analyzing the recent election — because “there's a general, serious smart audience, not politically aligned in a hard way,” one that would welcome “an intelligent voice.”
In the days following Trump's victory, “The Handmaid's Tale” and George Orwell's “1984” returned to bestseller lists, along with more contemporary works such as Timothy Snyder's “On Tyranny," a 2017 bestseller that expanded upon a Facebook post Snyder wrote soon after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Books appealing to pro-Trump readers also surged, including those written by Cabinet picks — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s “The Real Anthony Fauci” and Pete Hegseth's “The War on Warriors” — and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance's “Hillbilly Elegy,” his 2016 memoir that's sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Trump selected him as his running mate.
First lady Melania Trump's memoir, “Melania,” came out in October and has been high on Amazon.com bestseller lists for weeks, even as critics found it contained little newsworthy information. According to Circana, it has sold more than 200,000 copies, a figure that does not include books sold directly through her website.
“The Melania book has done extraordinarily well, better than we thought,” says Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. “After Election Day, we sold everything we had of it.”
Conservative books have sold steadily over the years, and several publishers — most recently Hachette Book Group — have imprints dedicated to those readers. Publishers expect at least some critical books to reach bestseller lists — if only because of the tradition of the publishing market favoring the party out of power. But the nature of what those books would look like is uncertain. Perhaps a onetime insider will have a falling out with Trump and write a memoir, like Bolton or former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, or maybe some of his planned initiatives, whether mass deportation or the prosecution of his political foes, will lead to investigative works.
A new “Fire and Fury” is doubtful, with the originally only possible because Wolff enjoyed extraordinary access, spending months around Trump and his White House staff. Members of the president-elect's current team have already issued a statement saying they have refused to speak with Wolff, calling the author a “known peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations, and conclusions that never happened.”
A publicist for Wolff said he was declining comment.
Woodward, who interviewed Trump at length for the 2020 bestseller “Rage,” told The Associated Press that he had written so much about Trump and other presidents that he wasn't sure what he'd take on next. He doesn't rule out another Trump book, but that will depend in part on the president-elect, how “out of control he gets,” Woodward said, and how far he is able to go.
“He wants to be the imperial president, where he gets to decide everything and no one's going to get in his way,” Woodward said. “He's run into some brick walls in the past and there may be more brick walls. I don't know what will happen. I'll be watching and doing some reporting, but I'm still undecided.”
1. “Too Much and Never Enough,” by Mary Trump: 1,248,212 copies
2. “Fire and Fury,” by Michael Wolff: 936,116 copies
3. “Fear,” by Bob Woodward: 872,014 copies
4. “The Room Where It Happened,” by John Bolton: 676,010 copies
5. “Rage,” by Bob Woodward: 549,685 copies
These figures represent total sales provided by Circana, which tracks about 85% of the print market and does not include e-book or audiobook sales.
FILE - A customer looks at a copy of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" as they go on sale at a bookshop, in London, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - Mary Trump discussing her book "Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir" at The 92nd Street Y on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Books are displayed under a sign at the Harvard Book Store, Thursday, March 9, 2017, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
FILE - A customer looks at a copy of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" as they go on sale at a bookshop, in London, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - A collection of books about President Donald Trump, from left, "Siege" by Michael Wolff, "Devil's Bargain" by Joshua Green, "Where Law Ends" by Andrew Weissmann, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership" by James Comey, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff, "Rage" by Bob Woodward, "Too Much and Never Enough" by Mary L. Trump, "Disloyal" by Michael Cohen, "Donald Trump V. The United States" by Michael S. Schmidt, "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World" by H. R. McMaster and "Wicked Game" by Rick Gates appear on a shelf in Westchester County, N.Y. on Monday, Nov. 9, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
