Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota has an opportunity to add to his trophy case as a nominee for ESPN’s Best Male College Athlete in the ESPY awards.
The other nominees, as announced by the network Wednesday, are: Frank Kaminsky (Wisconsin basketball), Logan Stieber (Ohio State wrestling), Dansby Swanson (Vanderbilt baseball) and Jack Eichel (Boston hockey).
The ESPY Awards will be announced July 15 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
Online fan voting will be open until just before the show is aired and will help determine the winners of most of the awards, the network said.
Nominees for Best male athlete were Golden State’s Stephen Curry, Cleveland’s LeBron James, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and Houston’s J.J. Watt. While the nominees for Best female athlete were MMA’s Ronda Rousey, UConn basketball player Breanna Stewart, skier Lindsey Vonn and tennis star Serena Williams.
Big wave surfer Paige Alms of Maui is nominated in the Best Female Action Sports Athlete category.
Mariota’s final season at quarterback for the University of Oregon has already produced a huge award haul including the Davey O’Brien and Johnny Unitas awards as college football’s best quarterback and the Maxwell and Walter Camp awards as the best player.
With the ending of the Tennessee Titans’ minicamp last week, Mariota, the second overall pick of April’s NFL Draft, is spending much of this week at the NFL’s Rookie Symposium in Cleveland. The symposium for drafted rookies includes seminars intended to help ease the on and off-the-field transition to pro football.
"You’re going to have to make the best decisions, because you represent not only yourself, but your team, your family, where you come from," Mariota said on the Titans’ website. "This rookie symposium gives us the information that we need to make better decisions."