The Heisman Trophy has become an itinerant worker the last few years. After 9/11, the Downtown Athletic Club sent its baby ’round to various venues for the ceremony.

Eventually, the DAC settled on a deal with the brand-new Sports Museum of America in Lower Manhattan last year to give it a proper home and a job as unofficial greeter and legitimizing force for the museum.

(If it’s okay, could the Heisman stay with you just for a few days?  You know, till it gets back on its sturdy base.)

Unfortunately, the DAC’s bronze buddy couldn’t stiff-arm financial troubles for the Sports Museum of America, which reported cutbacks in December. Now the museum has apparently gone under, closing shop overnight and dropping its Web site off the face of the Internet in the last day.

The museum started with $52 million of post-9/11 bond money and other private investment to become the über-sports museum. Unfortunately, it didn’t even make it to its first birthday. Maybe the museum won’t qualify for stimulus money, but digging out of the Tim Tebow love the last two years sure makes this feel like a shovel-ready project.