June 2, 1943, 80 years ago: Ensign Nile Kinnick is killed in a U.S. Navy training flight. He was a month short of his 25th birthday.
Nile Clarke Kinnick Jr. was born on July 9, 1918 in Adel, Iowa, the grandson of George Clarke, a Republican who served as Governor of Iowa from 1913 to 1917. His family were devout Christian Scientists, and, while Nile Jr. was already a sports star at Adel High School, Nile Sr. got a job in Omaha, Nebraska, and the family had to move. At Benson High School, he won a State Championship in baseball, and starred in basketball.
But his best sport was football, and he chose to attend the University of Iowa, supposedly because their program, then in a down period, would represent a better test for him than his other major option, the University of Minnesota, then one of the best programs in the country -- and Iowa's arch-rival.
Iowa still struggled, going just 1-7 in his sophomore year, 1937. (Freshmen were not eligible for varsity sports under NCAA rules until 1972, with occasional exceptions, such as during the upcoming World War II.) They went 1-6-1 in 1938. Head coach Irl Tubbs was fired, and Eddie Anderson was lured away from Holy Cross in Massachusetts.
He turned the team around in just 1 year: Iowa went 6-1-1, beating South Dakota and Indiana at home, losing away to Michigan, then winning away to Wisconsin and Purdue, beating then-Number 3 Notre Dame and then-Number 20 Minnesota at home, rising to Number 9 in the country, before closing the season with a tie away to Northwestern.
The loss to Michigan cost Iowa the Big Ten Conference title, throwing it to Ohio State, whom Iowa did not play. They did not receive an invitation to a bowl game. But the Notre Dame game became their signature win, and it was recognized as Kinnick's signature performance, scoring Iowa's only touchdown and pinning Notre Dame deep in their own end zone with a late punt, to secure a 7-6 win.
Kinnick was awarded the Heisman Trophy. In his acceptance speech, he said:, "I thank God I was warring on the gridirons of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of Europe. I can speak confidently and positively that the players of this country would much more, much rather struggle and fight to win the Heisman award than the Croix de Guerre." Another writer cited a pair of famed speechmakers from classical times, saying that his remarks "tackled Demosthenes and threw Cicero for a 15-yard loss."
He was elected student body president, maintained a grade-point average of 3.4, and gave the commencement address for his Class of 1940. That Summer, he played for the College All-Stars in the Chicago College All-Star Game at Soldier Field, losing to the defending NFL Champion Chicago Bears, 45-28.
But he never played football again. The NFL version of the Brooklyn Dodgers drafted him, but he turned down a $10,000 salary to go to the University of Iowa College of Law. He also served as an assistant coach at Iowa in the 1940 and '41 seasons, as the team went 4-4 and 3-5, respectively.
He spoke before the Young Republicans, and introduced Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican nominee for President, at an Iowa campaign rally. An Iowa newspaper, the Marion Sentinel, endorsed him for the 1956 Presidential election, the 1st in which he would be eligible, having met the minimum age requirement of 35.
He enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and reported for induction -- 3 days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He received leave to visit his family in Omaha in September 1942, and attended Iowa's season opener, at home at Iowa Stadium in Iowa City, a 26-7 win over Washington University of St. Louis.
On June 2, 1943, Ensign Nile Kinnick was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, off the coast of Venezuela. He was on a routine training flight in a Grumman F4F Wildcat, when it developed an oil leak. Radio contact was made, determining that he was 4 miles from the carrier, and was forced to carry out an emergency landing in the water. Rescue boats arrived 8 minutes later, but they found only an oil slick.
His body was never recovered. It took until 1996 for the plane to be found but, given that he might have still been inside, it was decided not to disturb the site.
A legend developed that the deck of the Lexington was covered with planes preparing to take off, and that trying to land on it would have caused an explosion that would have killed many of his crewmates, so Kinnick sacrificed himself to save them. The Navy later determined that it wouldn't have mattered: He couldn't have reached the carrier anyway, so the choice was out of his hands.
With the award's establishment in 1935, he was the 1st winner of the Heisman Trophy to die. There wouldn't be another until 1963, when 1961 winner Ernie Davis of Syracuse died from leukemia.
For nearly 30 years, Nile Kinnick Sr., having outlived his son, refused all requests by the University of Iowa to honor his son, not wanting to single him out over all other students who died in World War II. Finally, in 1972, he consented to the renaming of Iowa Stadium, which opened in 1929, as Kinnick Stadium. It remains the only stadium in American college football named for a Heisman Trophy winner. A statue of Kinnick was placed outside in 2006. His Number 24 was retired. The school plays an excerpt from his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech at every home game, before playing the National Anthem.
The coin flipped at the start of every Big Ten football game bears his image. He was a charter inductee into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. That same year, he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named him Iowa's 3rd-greatest sports figure, behind only wrestler and wrestling coach Dan Gable, and Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller, who had been on a youth baseball team with Kinnick.
Feller, also a U.S. Navy veteran, went to his grave believing that, had he lived, Kinnick would have been elected Governor of Iowa, and would have beaten John F. Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election.
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