Nile Kinnick, gridiron ace and war hero

In 1939 World War II had already begun in Europe and it was of great human concern to Nile Kinnick, the 5-foot, 7-inch, 165pound Iowa Hawkeyes’ all-purpose back who was on his way to becoming the fifth winner of the Heisman Trophy.

A headline in one of Sunday’s area newspapers called attention to Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, indicating that the stadium named in honor of the former star had become a crash-and-burn place for high powered Big 10 (now 12) team. Most recently, Ohio State’s alleged Buckeye powerhouse paid a visit and paid a heavy price, losing 55-24.

Led by Kinnick, the Iowa team of the late 1930s dished out the same kind of punishment to visiting juggernauts. (I rushed to find a book called “Heroes of the Heisman Trophy,” by Bill Libby to refresh my memory about Nile Kinnick. I found it.)

In his Heisman year, Kinnick registered two of his most spectacular performances on consecutive weekends. Notre Dame was unbeaten when the Irish came in. A 60-minute, doeverything back, Kinnick kept the opponent at bay with his terrific punting and finally scored the Hawkeyes’ only touchdown to tie the score at 6-6. And then he kicked the extra point, a drop-kick, of course, for the 7-6 upset victory.

The next weekend, powerful Minnesota arrived. The Gophers figured to knock Iowa into the middle of next week. That’s how highly regarded they were. They built a 9-0 lead, but . . .

Kinnick threw two touchdown passes and the underdogs won 13-9. The state celebrated, a wild time, and Kinnick’s name was on every football fan’s lips.

While his grandfather had once served as governor of Iowa, Nile was raised in Nebraska but chose Iowa for his university education. He was a Phi Bete Kappa scholar and his

senior year received not only the Heisman but the Maxwell Trophy as player-of-the-year and the Walter Camp Award as back-of-the-year.

At the Heisman Awards ceremony, Kinnick gave a moving and memorable acceptance speech during which he made a plea for peace among nations.

Kinnick was studying for his law degree when he was called into the service. He was training to be a Navy pilot in December 1941, when Pearl

Harbor was bombed. In June 1943, his badly damaged plane crashed some four miles from the aircraft carrier he was to land on and he was killed. He was 24.

Before he was a war hero, Nile Kinnick had established himself as sort of the “Little Boy Blue’’ (Yale’s Albie Booth) of the Midwest, although Booth played earlier, from 1929 to 1932, and at 5-feet, 5-inches and 144 pounds, was even smaller and lighter than Kinnick. But the two were similar in the way they dominated football games.

Kirk Ferentz has been head coach of iowa’s football team since 1999. His

home town is Royal Oak, Mich. Do you remember he coached at UConn in 1977? Well, he did, after playing linebacker for the Huskies for three years before that. His coaching career has been extensive, but when he arrived at Iowa, succeeding Hayden Fry, he decided this was where he belonged.

Obviously, it is. His contract runs through 2020.

As noted, the Hawkeyes are making an awful lot of noise this season. No one expected it. Advice to Randy Edsall and the Huskies: Stay away from Kinnick Stadium for a while, despite the UConn-Iowa connection.