Nile Clarke Kinnick Jr. (July 9, 1918 – June 2, 1943) was an American naval aviator, law student, and college football player for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Nile was a first-team all-state selection in both football and basketball as a senior, as he started for one year with his brother Ben at Benson High School in Omaha.

Iowa battled Washington, the eventual Pacific Coast Conference champions, to the wire in a 14–0 defeat and then scored an early victory over Bradley University.

His Christian Science beliefs limited the amount of medical assistance that Kinnick allowed himself to receive from the team doctors, believing that his injury could be overcome by his reliance on prayer for healing.

Before the first game, the Des Moines Register had a small note stating that "a set of iron men may be developed to play football for Iowa.

On November 28, 1939, Nile Kinnick won the Heisman Trophy, becoming to date the only Iowa Hawkeye to win college football's most prestigious award.

Upon receiving the Heisman at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City, Kinnick made the following statement during his acceptance speech:[10] Finally, please if you'll permit me, I'd like to make a comment which in my mind, is indicative perhaps of the greater significance of football, and sports emphasis in general in this country, and that is; I thank God I was warring on the gridirons of the Midwest and not on the battlefields of Europe.

AP reporter Whitney Martin wrote, "You realized the ovation (after his Heisman speech) wasn't alone for Nile Kinnick, the outstanding college football player of the year.

"[12] The University of Iowa recently began playing an excerpt from the speech on the Kinnick Stadium scoreboard before "The Star-Spangled Banner" at every Hawkeye home game.

Even as a high school student, Kinnick wrote many letters and kept meticulous journal entries, yet this alleged tryout with Minnesota is never referenced.

Another enduring story involves a game between Iowa and Michigan in the late 1930s for the Big Ten Conference title and/or a Rose Bowl berth.

First of all, Kinnick's Iowa teams only met Michigan twice, in 1937 and 1939, and at that time, the Big Ten did not send their champion to the Rose Bowl.

Teammates Erwin Prasse and George "Red" Frye substantiate Couppee's version, but neither of them refuted that Kinnick was injured on a previous play.

Kinnick, himself the grandson of a Governor, spoke before the Young Republicans and introduced 1940 presidential candidate Wendell Willkie at a campaign rally.

Kinnick said, "When the members of any nation have come to regard their country as nothing more than the plot of ground on which they reside, and their government as a mere organization for providing police or contracting treaties; when they have ceased to entertain any warmer feelings for one another than those which interest or personal friendship or a mere general philanthropy may produce, the moral dissolution of that nation is at hand."

[21] While Kinnick took a year of law school in 1940, he also served as an assistant football coach for the Hawkeyes, aiding the freshman team and scouting upcoming opponents.

According to The Daily Iowan's account, "Nile Kinnick, cool, calm, and collected while he's on a football team, pranced up and down the dressing room almost jabbering in his excitement.

After completing a speaking tour of Iowa communities and visiting his parents in Omaha, he reported for induction three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Later, he added, "Every man whom I've admired in history has willingly and courageously served in his country's armed forces in times of danger.

"The task which lies ahead is adventure as well as duty," Nile wrote in his final letter to his parents before deploying with the USS Lexington in late May 1943, "and I am anxious to get at it.

Comforted in the knowledge that your thought and prayer go with us every minute, and sure that your faith and courage will never falter, no matter the outcome, I bid you au revoir.

"[24] On June 2, 1943, Ensign Kinnick[1] was on a routine training flight from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington off the coast of Venezuela in the Gulf of Paria.

He had been flying for over an hour when his Grumman F4F Wildcat developed an oil leak so serious that he could neither reach land nor the Lexington, whose flight deck was already crowded with planes preparing for launch anyway.

"[25] In a letter to Kinnick's parents, his lieutenant commander Paul Buie wrote, "Having lost all oil the engine, without lubrication, failed, forcing Nile to land in the water.

[36] Calls to rename Iowa Stadium in Nile Kinnick's honor came immediately after the Heisman trophy winner's death in 1943.

[37] In November 1945 the University of Iowa student body voted to rededicate the structure as "Nile Kinnick Memorial Stadium".

[40] In 1972 "Nile Kinnick Stadium" was again proposed by Cedar Rapids Gazette sportswriter Gus Schrader, who had previously supported the students' efforts.

As part of those renovations, the school dedicated a 14-foot (4.3 m) bronze statue of Kinnick in front of the stadium on September 1, the day before the opening game.

Included in the ceremonies was a speech by head coach Kirk Ferentz, as well as a fly-over of a replication of the plane Kinnick flew in World War II.

Iowa also placed a 9-by-16-foot (2.7 m × 4.9 m) bronze relief on the wall of the stadium, depicting Kinnick's 1939 game-winning touchdown run against Notre Dame.