NEW YORK -- Lamar Jackson was trying to remember the last time he cried. He was pretty sure it involved losing a little league football game.On Saturday night, Louisvilles spectacular sophomore quarterback found out winning can get a guy choked up, too.Jackson became the first Louisville player to win the Heisman Trophy, beating out preseason favorite Deshaun Watson of Clemson despite some late-season struggles.Watson, who finished third last season, was a distant second. Baker Mayfield finished third and Oklahoma teammate and fellow finalist Dede Westbrook was fourth. Michigans Jabrill Peppers was fifth.Jackson, wearing a red velvet blazer with shiny black lapels and a black bow tie, said he could feel his heart pounding in his chest right before his name was announced. He barely held it together while giving his acceptance speech, with the former Heisman winners standing behind him on stage.I almost cried, Jackson said. I never get emotional, but to have my name called and see all those great players ...Early in the season, Jackson leapt over a loaded field of Heisman contenders that included five of the top seven vote-getters from 2015 to become the front-runner. By the time he slowed down nobody could catch him.Jackson accounted for 51 touchdowns and averaged 410 yards per game in total offense in his first season as Louisvilles full-time starter.He surpassed everything I thought he could do, Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said.Jackson ultimately won the Heisman going away, with 2,144 points to Watsons 1,524. By percentage of possible points received, Jacksons victory was the seventh largest in Heisman history. He also became the youngest winner at 19 years, 337 days, a few days younger than 2013 winner Jameis Winston of Florida State.Jackson credited his mother, Felicia Jones, and said the trophy will go anywhere she decides to put it. Jones raised Jackson as a single mom and would put on football pads to help her son work on his game when he was a kid.Everything I do is for my mother, Jackson said.Jackson is the first Heisman winner to play on a team that lost its last two games of the regular season since Tim Brown of Notre Dame in 1987. Hes the first to enter the postseason without a chance to win the national title since Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M in 2012.No matter. Jackson did so much before November it was difficult to deny him the award because of a couple of missteps at the end .He provided a signature moment against Syracuse , hurdling a defender on his way into the end zone, and then played his best against Louisvilles toughest competition.In a romp over Florida State and a close loss at Clemson , Jackson threw for 511 yards, ran for 308 and accounted for eight touchdowns. After ripping apart Florida State in September, he earned the stamp of approval from his idol, former Virginia Tech and NFL star Mike Vick.Each and every game should be a Heisman moment, Jackson said.Jackson left that Oct. 1 game in Death Valley as a threat to run away with the Heisman, but losses to Houston and Kentucky, when he committed four turnovers, in late November provided an opportunity for others to sway voters.Watson made the biggest surge, but fell way short.Jackson continues a recent trend of breakout stars winning the Heisman. He is the sixth player to win the award as either a redshirt freshman or sophomore, all since 2007, joining Manziel (redshirt freshman), Winston (redshirt freshman), Mark Ingram (sophomore), Sam Bradford (sophomore) and Tim Tebow (sophomore).Jackson came to Louisville as a three-star recruit from Boynton Beach High School in Florida. Some colleges were not sold on him as a quarterback, but Jackson was such a dynamic talent that Petrino altered his offense to accommodate Jacksons speed and elusiveness.Jackson flashed brilliance as a freshman, but with so many well-established stars from Watson and Mayfield to running backs Christian McCaffrey of Stanford, Dalvin Cook of Florida State and Leonard Fournette of LSU, he entered this season with little fanfare.Just the way he likes it.Jackson spent the season adjusting to newfound fame, growing into the role of face of the team and trying to stay out of the spotlight. He said he cut down on trips to the mall to avoid the inevitable crowds he drew.He is about to become even more popular. Especially, back in Louisville, where he has another year before he can even consider his next big jump -- to the NFL. Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said he liked the idea of building a statue of Jackson in front of Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium.I dont care where you put it man, Jackson said with a laugh. Its an honor just to have a statue.---Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP---More AP college football: www.collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25.Michael Thomas Saints Jersey . Ivanovic was leading 7-5, 1-0 when Hantuchova withdrew after falling 0-40 behind in the second game. The match started slowly for Ivanovic, who surrendered her first two serves as Hantuchova took a 5-3 lead. Sheldon Rankins Womens Jerseyhttp://www.authenticsaintssportsonline.com/saints-michael-thomas-gold-jersey/ . On Mar. 16, coming off a "fight of the year" performance at UFC 154 the previous November, St-Pierre faced Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in what would be his eighth defence of the welterweight title. Using his superior athleticism, St-Pierre cruised to a five round, unanimous decision victory setting up a much-anticipated title defence against number one contender Johny Hendricks. Wil Lutz Youth Jersey . If ever they start actually putting pictures beside words in the dictionary, the Blue Jays left-handers mug will appear beside “Consistency. TreQuan Smith Jersey . The Brazilian goalkeeper signed a loan deal with the Major League Soccer club on Friday as he looks to get playing time ahead of this summers World Cup in his home country.It was a wire agency report on the fifth stage of the 1981 Tour de France that planted the seed of my interest in the race that has drawn me back for all but two of the past 30 years.That report was about Phil Anderson, then 23 and two years into his professional career on the French Peugeot team. In that fifth stage on June 30, he became the first Australian to claim the Tour leaders yellow jersey - the maillot jaune - and the first non-European to do so. As memorable as his feat, was how he claimed the yellow jersey; and then, who he beat to do it; that being, the French hero and eventual five-time Tour winner, Bernard Hinault.Richie Porte Diary - I am a contenderThe stage from Saint Gaudens to Pla dAdet in the Pyrenees was won by Belgian Lucien Van Impe. Behind Van Impe, Anderson was fighting all the way to the mountain finish with Hinault; the Australian was remarkably oblivious to the charismatic but fiery Frenchmans legendary stature.Unwittingly, Anderson even insulted Hinault, offering him a drink as they went pedal stroke for pedal stroke; Hinault swiped it to the ground, letting Anderson know how he took it.For the French media, Andersons audacity to take on Hinault, who was then a two-time Tour champion, who went on to win the 1981 race, was a major story. Anderson went on to finish 10th overall in that 1981 Tour, but his ride that day was only a sign of the things to come in a career that saw the Australian go on to finish in the top 10 five times, including fifth twice.My knowledge of the Tour then was drawn only from a slide that my French teacher at school had shown in a class one day. It was probably taken in the 1970s, of fans happily cheering the peloton from their roadside table that was laden with baguettes, cheeses and wine.But the theatre of Andersons breakthrough in the 1981 Tour -- how he, the Pauper, took on and beat Hinault, the King -- and then how his career progressed soon after that day fuelled my desire to one day go to France and actually cover the race.It also stoked hope that I would be there should Anderson win it. Anderson never became the first Australian to win the Tour, but the hope turned real in 2011, when Cadel Evans finally won it after finishing eighth on his debut in 2005, fourth in 2006 and second in 2007 and 2009; and that something in the Tour sees me returning this year for the 28th time.The Tour: The highs to the lowsStill, it has been a roller-coaster journalistic ride between my first 1987 Tour and this years 103rd edition that starts at Mont Saint Michel in Normandy on Saturday. Andersons 1981 success was the catalyst to me leaving Australia in 1987 to live in Europe for nine years, first as editor of the English edition of Winning Bicycle Racing Illustrated in Brussels and then as the European correspondent for the American publication, VeloNews.But for all the races those years living in Belgium and then France led me to -- from the one-day spring classics to week-long tours and world championships that during that time were held beyond Europe and as far away as Colombia and Japan -- the Tour was always the summit of a season. It was to cycling what the Super Bowl and grand finals are to football, but held every day for three weeks -- not counting rest day/s -- or close to four when I first covered it in 1987.Ever lasting are the memories of the Tour -- some better than others -- that I have returned to year after year writing for various publications, now including ESPN.Five key stages that could shape this years raceChief among those memories are that first 1987 Tour won by Irishman Stephen Roche, whose race diary I wrote for Winning (often with both of us sitting in the gutter in a time before the team buses of today); the 1988 race won by Pedro Delgado of Spain, who had lost to Roche the year before; and 1986 Tour winner Greg LeMond when he claimed his second and third wins - in 1989 after being shot in 1987 while turkey hunting in the U.S., when he surpassed the French race leader Laurent Fignon on the last days time-trial into Paris to win by just eight seconds. Those were memorable years. Then in 1990, the five-year reign of Miguel Indurain began, after which the dark clouds of doping rolled in and pushed the Tour into the blackest years in which many riders were caught up in drugs scandals. The scandals included expulsion from the 1998 Tour of the French Festina team for doping, the 2006 Operation Puerto drug probe, and Lance Armstrongs 2012 doping confession that saw him lose his record seven Tour titles from 1999 to 2005 and banned for life.The Tour: Cause for cheers and, sadly, tearsThe Tour has not just been about doping controversies, as much as some may argue otherwise. While skepticism about performance will likely remain as a consequence of doping in the sport, there has been plenty of cause for laughter, cheers and, sadly, tears.You cant help but laugh at some of the funny antics that can go on in a race. Likewise, at what happens among the hundreds of thousands of spectators who line the roads to watch it.dddddddddddd Their thunderous cheers reflect what the Tour is all about: Its not just a celebration of human endeavour, but also of La Belle France - her produce, terrain, culture and history.Albeit with rider safety on a rapidly thinning line, the antics of some fans increasingly draws anger. But fans are not always to blame.Who will forget the 1994 Tour when a policeman stepped out right into line of the peloton to take a photo as it sprinted to the finish of stage one into Armentières, causing a massive high-speed crash.Or in 2011 when nearing the final and most crucial kilometres of stage nine to Saint-Flour, the driver of a French television car side passed the lead five-rider break, and struck and sent Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland into a barbed wire fence and Spaniard Juan Antonio Flecha to the ground.To another extreme, there are moments of sadness in the Tour -- tragedy, too, as the 1995 Tour reminds with the death of Italian 1992 Olympic road champion Fabio Casartelli.Castartelli was just six days from earning his first Tour finish when he crashed on the descent of the Col de Portet dAspet in the Pyrenees, 30km into stage 15 from Saint Girons to Cauterets.The moment in time when then Tour race director Jean-Marie Le Blanc announced Castartellis death on race radio, after he had been evacuated to hospital by helicopter and as the stage continued on towards its finish, lasted barely 15 seconds. But LeBlancs words, in the heaviest and saddest of tones, still ring hauntingly loud for me to this day. We have some sad news to give regarding the rider, No.114, of team Motorola. Due to the injuries to the head, Casartelli has lost his life.As strong was the emotion of all in the race - from those in official, media and team cars following the race as they absorbed the shock, to the riders as they learned of Castartellis fate after being dropped and told of it. The emotion was similar a day later, on stage 16 from Tarbes to Pau that on paper was the hardest but also fell on the hottest of summer days. The peloton, taking charge of the day from organisers, produced one of the most beautiful yet heart-rending tributes for Castartelli, 24 and a married father of a baby boy, by opting to ride the stage slowly and as a virtual cortege before beckoning his Motorola teammates to ride off the front to the finish with one kilometre to go.Etched in memory, too, is the image of Casartellis Italian roommate, Andrea Peron, crossing the line first in a stage race organisers declared unofficial.As strong was the image of Casartellis bike on the Motorola team car as it drove onto the Champs élysées on the final stage into Paris -- fittingly with a black ribbon attached to it.The Tour: More than a bike raceBut as every year passes, I am reminded that covering the Tour is not just about writing about the worlds biggest bike race; from its scandals and controversies to the theatre of brazen attacks, impressive stage wins and ultimately overall glory for one when it finishes in Paris.For all, it is also about the adventure, the camaraderie among those with whom you travel in a shared car to and from the 21 stage starts and finishes and hotels in a journey that for a 3500km race can amount to 5000km by its end.It is about the banter, the blend of humour and various musical tastes, and even the personal habits -- the good and bad. Its about the over-booked hotels, closed kitchens at dinner time, the traffic jams and rollover of wearing clothes twice before washing them for the first time on a rest day. There is the test of ones patience when things go wrong, and ones ability to laugh or to take a deep breath when really you feel like screaming, especially when the normally simplest of problems seemingly become harder as the race continues; or to support a colleague whose day has gone awry.It is also about the moment you get to stop and appreciate the beauty of where you are -- especially when alone, such as the time you get to go for an early-morning run or walk in the mountains or a forest or by the coast. Likewise, there are also times you stop and appreciate how your life at times when the Tour passes or stops at some of the economically and socially deprived areas of France for logistical reasons, to fit in with the Tour route planned well in advance, yet also driven by organisers wanting to support to areas and people in need.The Tour de France may be just a bike race, and forever a dirty one to its detractors. But in the big picture, in many ways it is a microcosm of the bigger and troubled world we live in.Like human spirit, the Tour will never be free of foibles or flaws. So does that mean we abandon it? After almost 30 years of experiencing its highs and lows, I am prepared to go the distance in a race that one can love and hate, pending the day ... well, at least for now! ' ' '