Today's Tidbit... The First Nile Kinnick Stadium

Big Ten and other college football fans are familiar with Nile Kinnick Stadium on the campus of the University of Iowa. The stadium is named after Nile Kinnick, the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner. The fifth person to receive the Heisman, he was the first to perish when he ditched his Grumman F4F Wildcat during a training flight off the USS Lexington in 1943. The plane sunk shortly afterward, presumably with Kinnick in it.

(1941 Iowa yearbook)

The Iowa student body voted to rename their stadium in his honor in November 1945, proposing that the change occur on Dad's Day 1946. However, the university did not take that step until 1972, reasoning that doing so would single out Kinnick’s sacrifice more than others who died during the war.

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