PB Letter Club hosts dinner for All-SEMO teams, not in charge of invitations

The Heisman Trophy will be awarded tonight to the most outstanding college football player for the 87th time and along with three quarterbacks, Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson is looking to become the first winner who did not play snaps on offense.

Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Pitt’s Kenny Pickett are also finalists for the award.

Since 1979, the local high school version of the Heisman Trophy has been presented to the most outstanding player in the SEMO Conference during the annual Poplar Bluff Letter Club Gridiron Banquet.

The event will be held for the 76th time on Wednesday night.

It started when a high school student decided the all-conference team should be honored with a banquet. He organized it and invited players from around Southeast Missouri to Poplar Bluff for a dinner that featured a guest speaker in University of Missouri football coach Don Faurot.

Sam Giambelluca was the high school student that started the banquet and he continued to run it and the basketball banquet for over 60 years. A lifetime achievement award is named in his honor and will be presented Wednesday night.

There will also be awards presented to the top scorer in each conference divisions, an award that was first given in 1946, and the top linemen, which has been presented since 1953. Other awards were added to the program, including a sportsmanship award in 2003 and the Derland Moore Award in 2011 to the best defensive player.

The most outstanding player in the SEMO Conference is presented with the Carr Trophy and among the three finalists is Poplar Bluff quarterback Kannon Carr.

The trophy is named in honor of E.E. “Bus” Carr who was one of the early members of the Letter Club, an announcer for radio station KWOC who was inducted into the Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Carr the player, who is not related to the trophy’s namesake, is a finalist with Kennett senior Jordan Jarrett and Hayti senior Trayvon Thomas.

Derland Moore Award finalists are Malden’s Jalias Anderson, Poplar Bluff’s Hunter Jenkins and Kennett’s Latrevion Thompson.

When the finalists and all-conference teams were announced, the comment section for the online story was flooded with fans upset about players not included.

Because the Poplar Bluff Letter Club hosts the event, it quickly became a target for the outrage even though the selection process was explained.

It’s a good example of how a conspiracy theory takes root.

Since my autograph appears on the all-conference certificates along with Giambelluca’s signature, perhaps it’s best if we go through the facts before I’m the next one blamed.

Coaches select the all-conference team in a vote held at the end of the regular season, in this case it was on Nov. 1. A coach may nominate only a certain number of players on offense and defense based on their finish in the conference standings and they may not vote for their own players.

A set number of players are honored with a first-team vote for each position according the bylaws of the conference, which also details the vote process. Coaches also select Linemen of the Year, Coach of the Year, as well as offensive and defensive players of the year, which become nominations for the Carr Trophy and Derland Moore Award.

The coaches of each division — in the North that would be Jackson, Farmington, Poplar Bluff, Cape Central and Sikeston — go through each position and rank the players, but not their own.

Here’s an example of what they saw for quarterback in one division:

Player A: Senior, 1,557 passing yards, 24 touchdown, four interceptions on 110 of 145 passes, 41 carries, 219 yards, two touchdowns;

Player B: Junior, 1,040 passing yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions on 79 of 158 passes, 30 carries, 120 yards, one touchdown;

Player C: Senior, 2,216 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, seven interceptions on 138 of 224 passes, 43 carries, 210 yards, seven touchdowns.

Based on that information, and what they saw in games, the coaches made their selection.

Meanwhile, the Carr Trophy is determined by a nine-member committee made up of area football officials with only one a representative of the Poplar Bluff Letter Club. This group, which is named in the program each year, meets and votes on the player that will win the awards. In recent years, the committee has released three finalists as a way to recognize more players.

The committee must make their decision shortly after the end of the regular season in order to get the awards done in time for the banquet, which is normally held the Wednesday after the state championship game unless it conflicts with the conference basketball tournament like this week.

While only one of those quarterbacks in the above example will be honored Wednesday night, it’s nothing new. There have been basketball players earn all-state honors not named first-team All-SEMO and perhaps the best example is the namesake of the defensive player award.

Derland Moore was never a first-team All-SEMO football player at Poplar Bluff. He didn’t get a single Division I scholarship offer in football. Instead, he was a walk-on at Oklahoma where he became an All-American defensive lineman and was drafted by the New Orleans Saints leading to a 14-year NFL career.

Not getting an All-SEMO patch for his letterjacket didn’t stop Moore from becoming one of the all-time best players from the area.