Ohio State football legend Archie Griffin is getting another massive honor, this time being named the 2026 Person of the Year by the Agonis Club of Columbus. The club, which is made up of local sports fans and business leaders, has been around for over 90 years. They will officially celebrate Archie at a big dinner banquet on August 19, 2026, at the Villa Milano venue in Columbus.

Guests can arrive at 5:30 p.m. for a silent auction and cash bar. Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. The evening program starts at 7 p.m., and the live auction begins at 7:30 p.m. One of the auction items is two tickets to a 2026 Ohio State Buckeyes home football game. Admission is $75 for one ticket, $125 for two tickets, or $500 for a table of eight. More sponsor and table choices are also offered.

It is a well-deserved party for a guy who has spent his entire life making Ohio proud. The Agonis Club does a ton of good work in central Ohio, especially when it comes to raising scholarship money for high school athletes and funding sports programs at Ohio State. Since 1968, they have handed out this specific “Person of the Year” award to people who are not just incredibly successful in sports but who are also genuinely good, humble human beings.

Over the years, the club has honored coaches, players, and families who helped shape sports in central Ohio, not just on scoreboards but in classrooms and neighborhoods. Putting Griffin’s name on that list shows how deeply he is woven into everyday life in Columbus, not only as a star from the 1970s but as a steady presence today.

Locals are joking that the club had to settle for a yearly award because there is simply no trophy big enough to match everything Archie has done for the community over the last 50 years.

If you look at his football career, it is easy to see why he is still treated like royalty. Archie remains the only college football player in history to win the prestigious Heisman Trophy twice, taking it home back-to-back in 1974 and 1975. He also won the Maxwell Award and was twice named Big Ten Most Valuable Player.

He also holds a legendary college record for rushing over 100 yards in 31 straight regular-season games. After college, Griffin was selected in the first round of the 1976 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals. He played seven seasons in the NFL. He was so dominant that his old coach, Woody Hayes, famously said Archie was an even better person than he was a football player, which is crazy praise considering how good he was on the field.

Archie Griffin’s legacy

Lately, Ohio State and the local community have been finding all sorts of awesome ways to celebrate Archie while he is still here to enjoy it. Just in the last couple of years, they built a permanent bronze statue of him outside Ohio Stadium and even let him “dot the i” during the famous Script Ohio marching band performance, which is a massive honor usually saved for band members.

He was also chosen to ring the stadium’s victory bell to kick off the football season, proving that his legacy is just as strong today as it was in the 1970s. After playing seven seasons in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals, Archie came right back to Columbus to help the next generation.

He earned his MBA, worked for decades in the Ohio State athletic department, and ran the university’s massive alumni association until he retired.

Today, he still runs a charity foundation with his wife that helps underprivileged kids get into sports and education programs. This new award from the Agonis Club is just the latest thank-you from a city that will never forget what he has done.