Rightly or wrongly, football is very definitely tied up with the status of a university. The majority of people who go to college...they don’t get th… - Nile Kinnick
" "Rightly or wrongly, football is very definitely tied up with the status of a university. The majority of people who go to college...they don’t get that wider horizon or that better mental equilibrium. But they do get the opportunity. I think the same thing is true about football. While possibly the majority of boys don’t get those subjective values that I mentioned, certainly the opportunity is there, and I think the values they do get are perhaps more intensely brought out than they are in an educational system itself. As far as any activities I have been connected with are concerned, football has given me the opportunity to round out my philosophy and to change my thinking process more than any other activity with which I have been connected.
About Nile Kinnick
Nile Clarke Kinnick Jr. (July 9, 1918 – June 2, 1943) was a student and a college football player at the University of Iowa. He won the 1939 Heisman Trophy and was a consensus All-American. He died during a training flight while serving as a United States Navy aviator in World War II. Kinnick was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, and the University of Iowa renamed its football stadium Kinnick Stadium in his honor in 1972.
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Additional quotes by Nile Kinnick
We either must jump in this mess strongly regardless of the risk or refuse to take our rightful place in the world. More than at any time since the Napoleonic period Western Civilization and Christianity are at stake. That puts it strongly but is no exaggeration just the same. Lincoln was a moral and upright man. He was a pacifist at heart. But when there was no other alternative he did not equivocate nor cravenly talk of peace when there was no peace. He grabbed the bull by the horns; realizing that the nation could not endure half slave and half free, he threw down the gauntlet and eradicated the evil. We are faced with the same thing and the longer we wait the worse it becomes.
It is very sobering to realize just what the future holds for a boy of my age. On the other hand it is a practical challenge to a man’s courage and personal integrity. A man who talks but is afraid to act, who sacrifices principle to expediency whenever real danger threatens is not worthy to keep and enjoy what he has. He is not worthy of his background and heritage who kowtows to tyranny in order to cling to his temporary safety and comfort...I trust I will have the courage to act as I speak come what may. I will not be easy – but should, therefore, can be done.
I share with you an innate desire to be of public service to this country. It is the lot of our generation to serve as military men first, and then, with an idealism undaunted to enlist with as much zeal to form a lasting peace. All will come right, our cause is just and righteous. This country will not lose.