National Football Foundation

Chris Howard, the inaugural recipient of the Campbell Trophy®, remains one of only two winners to hail from a service academy, which requires a grueling balancing act of academics, athletics and military duties.
 
A two-year starter at running back for the U.S. Air Force Academy, Howard was a three-time letterman who averaged 4.5 yards per carry. The Falcons compiled a 15-9-1 record over Howard’s final two seasons. During his senior year, Air Force upset Ohio State, 23-11, in the Liberty Bowl.
 
An Academic All-American as a junior and senior, the Plano, Texas, native never missed the Superintendent’s or Dean’s lists, achieving a 3.7 GPA and a 3.58 military performance average, which by military standards is extremely rare. As a junior, Howard served as Wing Sergeant Major, the highest ranking cadet in his class.
 
As a senior, he held the Fourth Group Commander title, responsible for the discipline, training and welfare of more than 1,200 cadets.
 
Class president for his sophomore, junior and senior years, he finished 13th out of a class of 986 and earned a prestigious Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned his doctorate in politics.
 
Howard’s “partial” list of accomplishments includes earning his wings as a helicopter pilot, serving in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer where he earned a Bronze Star, receiving an MBA at Harvard, managing a $100 million Bristol-Myers Squibb HIV/AIDS initiative in southern Africa, founding a non-profit foundation and serving as a member of General Electric’s Corporate Initiative Group.
 
Howard is a member of the Academic All-American Hall of Fame and a winner of the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award. A member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, he has received numerous honorary degrees. In 2018, he was selected as the seventh recipient of Armed Forces Merit Award presented by the Football Writers Association of America.

Howard served as a member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee from 2017-19. In 2021, he joined the National Football Foundation Board of Directors.
 
Howard served as the president of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia from 2009-16 and then as president at Robert Morris University from 2016-22. In February 2022, he joined Arizona State University as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the ASU Enterprise.