Leslie Horvath (October 12, 1921 – November 14, 1995) was an American football quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy while playing for the Ohio State Buckeyes in 1944.

He played as a reserve halfback on the 1942 team coached by Paul Brown that won Ohio State's first-ever national championship.

In 1944, however, acting Ohio State football coach Carroll Widdoes asked Horvath to rejoin the team, taking advantage of a World War II-era rule allowing graduate students with remaining eligibility to play.

Following his discharge, he played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Los Angeles Rams in 1947 and 1948 before being released and signing with the Cleveland Browns in |1949.

Horvath was born to immigrant parents from Hungary in 1921, in South Bend, Indiana; his family soon moved to Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.

[9] After graduating, Horvath attended Ohio State University on a work scholarship, but managed to make the school's football team in 1940.

[10] Schmidt was fired after the season and replaced by Paul Brown, an Ohio high school coach who had guided Massillon Washington to a series of undefeated records and state championships.

[10] Horvath was a reserve halfback in the Buckeyes' single-wing offense in 1941, when the team posted a 6–1–1 win–loss–tie record and finished second in the Big Ten Conference standings.

[10] Despite his small frame, Brown recognized Horvath's potential as a senior in 1942 and made him a regular starter at halfback beside Paul Sarringhaus and fullback Gene Fekete.

[16] Ohio State's 9–1 record put it on top of the Big Ten standings and in the final AP Poll, giving the school its first-ever national championship.

[21] After graduating from Ohio State's dental school in 1945, Horvath signed to play for the Cleveland Rams of the National Football League.

[10][22][23] He was sent at first to Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois for training, where he practiced dentistry and acted as an assistant to Brown, who had entered the Navy and was coaching the base's football team.

[31][32] The AAFC disbanded after the season and the Browns were absorbed by the NFL, but Horvath decided to quit football to practice dentistry back in California.

[35] He coached little league football and practiced dentistry in Glendale, California, a major Los Angeles suburb, for the rest of his life.