The Heisman Weekend

What happens when you play the opening night party for college football's biggest weekend.

There are events where everything goes according to plan, and the best thing you can do is stay out of the way and let the room do what it wants to do. The Heisman Trust opening night party at the Marriott Times Square was one of those nights.

The Heisman Trust had brought the four finalists and nearly every living Heisman Trophy winner to New York City for the weekend, and the opening night cocktail party was the first moment all of those people were in the same room. Families from all over the country. Legends of college football going back decades. And a band from Long Island setting up in the lobby with a Heisman logo projected twenty feet high on the wall behind us.

The production team at the hotel was exceptional. They handled sound, so we walked in with our instruments and nothing else. No hauling speakers up elevators, no arguing about monitor placement. I still set up my own lighting rig behind the band, and when the event planner came over and gave her opinion on the color, I changed it on the spot. That kind of collaboration makes a night easier for everyone.

Setting up in the Marquis Ballroom lobby. The Heisman logo projected on the wall above us.

For the set, the challenge was designing two hours of cocktail music for a room that was half college football royalty and half their families, many of whom had never been to New York. We were in Times Square. That context is a gift if you use it right.

We opened with something mid-tempo, warm, the kind of music that gets people comfortable in a room they don't know yet. From there we built toward Empire State of Mind. We played it three times that night, each time differently. The first version was an instrumental jazz interpretation, something for the room to settle into. The second was a vocal arrangement, transposed down to fit my range, more of a background piece. The third was a shorter, more deliberate closer, leading directly into New York, New York by Sinatra. As the ballroom doors opened we played New York State of Mind -- quieter, more intimate, the kind of song that makes people stop their conversations for just a moment and remember where they are.

We were in Times Square. That context is a gift if you use it right.

Nearly every living Heisman Trophy winner in the same room.

The ceremony followed -- the nominees interviewed on stage, a group photo with the living Heisman winners, the whole room standing and documenting it on their phones. Then everyone poured back out into the cocktail space, and the energy was completely different. The formality was gone. People were celebrating.

That's when it got interesting.

Someone came up and asked if his younger brother could play a song. When I spoke to the brother, he asked if he could play my guitar. I tuned it quickly for him, ran through the chord shape he needed, and stepped back. He played Feliz Navidad. The room came completely undone. Carlton and Cory backed him up without missing a beat, and by the end of the song there were Heisman Trophy winners on their feet singing along.

Two days later, his older brother was announced as the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana's first ever, number one pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

By the end of the song there were Heisman Trophy winners on their feet singing along.

Cory on drums. The RequestWave sign at the front of the kit.

After the song, RequestWave took over. I watched Heisman Trophy winners -- some of the most decorated players in the history of college football -- scrolling through the catalog and dedicating songs to each other with the kind of nicknames that only exist between people who've been in the same fraternity for decades. It wasn't a performance anymore. It was a party.

That's the thing about a room full of people who genuinely love each other. You don't have to manufacture the feeling. You just have to find it and follow it.

-- Bryce