Nile Kinnick The Iowa Football Star Who Died Too Young

 

Iowa Hawkeyes fans were stunned in June 1943 when they learned that former halfback Nile Kinnick had died in action.

Kinnick’s parents told reporters they hadn’t heard from him since May 22. They thought he was assigned to an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Atlantic, but weren’t sure where. The Navy subsequently reported Kinnick’s Grumman F4F Wildcat suffered a catastrophic oil leak shortly after takeoff from the USS Lexington. He followed protocol and ditched his aircraft in the water about four miles from the carrier. Unfortunately, his body was never found.

When Kinnick enlisted in the Naval Air Corps in September 1941, he told reporters, “I would be lacking in appreciation for all America has done for me did I not offer what little I had to her.

“And I’m going in with both fists swinging.”

Capitol Park High School Football Team 1903

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Capitol Park High School football team in a special section on area schools in th May 3, 1903 issue.Unfortunately they didn't name the individual players.

Fan Riding Hot Air Balloon Over Football Field 1913

This 1913 cartoon from the Des Moines Register (September 7, 1913) shows that football was as big a part of Iowa life then as it is today.

Dick Nesbitt Drake University Football 1928

 

Dick Nesbitt, Drake University football player, Des Moines, Iowa. (watercolor drawing of black and white image published in the Des Moines Register. November 29, 1928)

Drake University Football Players 1927

Drake University football players: Gibson Holliday (center); Charles “Chuck” Delmege (right); Lester Jones (left).

Photo from the Des Moines Register. December 23, 1927.

Bill Glasgow University of Iowa Hawkeye Half Back

Des Moines Register. January 19, 1930.

University of Iowa All-American half back Bill Glasgow received the Chicago Tribune Big Ten Trophy of 1930 as a star of the Western Conference.

Advertisement for Drake vs Cornell Football Game 1923

 

This advertisement for the Drake vs Cornell football game appeared in the Des Moines Register on September 30, 1923 Tickets were $1.00.

Drake Bulldogs vs Iowa State Cyclones 1927

A scene showing the Drake Bulldogs and Iowa State Cyclones football game held at Drake's Stadium in 1927. Captain Bill Cook from Drake is running with the ball.

Willis “Bill” Glassgow Iowa Fottball Standout

Iowa Stadium in the late 1920s wasn’t a cozy field. It was a cold, bruising arena built for impact, and fans packed the place to watch Willis “Bill” Glassgow deliver it. He treated every carry like a personal accusation. When he lowered his shoulder, it wasn’t grace or style. It was force, and people in the stands felt the shock of it.

He arrived in Iowa City in 1927 looking like a kid who had taken a wrong turn. He came from Shenandoah with no bulk and no shine, but he carried something in his eyes that earned him a place. He survived practice the same way a man survives a riot: by staying on his feet and refusing to back up. Teammates said he worked like someone trying to break out of a locked room. He didn’t juke or dance. He pushed forward because that was the only direction he trusted.

By 1928, the Big Ten knew Iowa had something dangerous. Glassgow made third-team All-American not because he tricked defenses but because he rushed through them. Football then was closer to open-air combat. Helmets were thin leather, pads barely existed, and every snap felt like someone’s bad idea of a street fight. Coaches tried traps and shifting fronts to catch him, but he hammered through whatever they drew up.

Unstoppable: Iowa's Duke Slater And The Game He Changed

Duke Slater came out of Clinton, Iowa, like a walking thunderclap. Big shoulders, bigger presence, a man who made coaches straighten their backs when he walked past. Reporters called him “a human barricade.” Players called him worse. None of it slowed him down.

He grew up in a world that didn’t expect a Black kid to go anywhere. Slater ignored the script. He pushed through it the way he pushed through defensive lines—head down, legs driving, no apologies.

 

His high school couldn’t afford helmets. Most players hesitated. Slater didn’t. He played bare-headed and kept doing it for the rest of his life. A rival said, “Hitting him was like running into a stone wall.” Another said, “I hit him once. That was enough.”

 

When he got to the University of Iowa, everything changed. The Hawkeyes already had a team. Slater gave them a force of nature.

Johnny Lujack Notre Dame & Chicago Bears Football Star

Johnny Lujack

Notre Dame, 1943. The war’s taken half the roster, and the star quarterback’s off in uniform. The Irish need someone who won’t flinch. Johnny Lujack is nineteen, straight out of a Pennsylvania coal town, quiet, steady, built from hard work and wintry mornings.

 They hand him the ball. He doesn’t say much—just looks downfield and gets to work. He runs like he means it and throws like he’s trying to prove something, every play tight and clean, no wasted motion, no fear.

 

That fall, he rips through Army like a hot knife through arrogance, and the Irish take the national title. The papers call him “the most complete player ever to wear a Notre Dame uniform.” One writer says, “Lujack doesn’t play the game so much as control it — like he’s got the whistle in his own mouth.”

 

The word Heisman floats around, but before anyone can engrave a trophy, the Navy snaps him up. He swaps the gridiron for a steel deck and spends two years hunting German submarines in the Atlantic. One of his crewmates said, “He never blinked. We could’ve been staring into hell, and he’d just adjust the periscope.”