Nile Kinnick is inarguably the most important football player in University of Iowa history. Kinnick was a bruising tailback who played for the Hawkeyes in the late 1930s, and became the school’s first and only Heisman Trophy winner in 1939. Kinnick was the catalyst behind that Iowa team, which finished ninth in the Associated Press year-end polls with a record of 6-1-1. Kinnick threw for over 600 yards and 11 touchdowns that season, on only 31 passes. Additionally, he ran for 374 yards and five touchdowns, in all accounting for 107 of Iowa’s 130 points scored in 1939. He won nearly every possible award that season, including the Heisman, and became the first college athlete to win the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year award. After college, rather than sign a lucrative contract in the NFL, Kinnick joined the Navy to serve in World War II. On June 2nd, 1943, Kinnick was flying a routine training flight over the Gulf of Paria in Venezuela when his plane malfunctioned, forcing an emergency landing in the middle of the ocean. Kinnick’s body was never found, and the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner was dead at the age of 24. Today, the University of Iowa football stadium is named “Kinnick Stadium” in honor of Iowa’s greatest gridiron hero.

     The item presented here is a government postcard signed by Kinnick in gray pencil. His signature presented beautifully, and is largely unaffected despite its great age. He added the inscription “Best Wishes”. This postcard is addressed to a “Chas. Greene” of Toledo, Ohio. A stamp on the postcard dates it to January 18th, 1940, just over a month after Kinnick was awarded the Heisman. This postcard comes with a LOA from JSA (X80217).

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