2016-09-08 Thu

A legend of Big Ten lore will be present at every conference stadium when the 121st season of Big Ten football kick-starts. This is a 50-year-old tradition and the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick from Iowa was featured on the obverse of the coin used for the pregame coin toss. Kinnick belonged to the First-Team All-American; received the Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Trophy in 1939, and was a part of College Football Hall of Fame's charter class of 1951.

After graduating as senior class president and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Kinnick joined the Naval Air Corps Reserve in 1941. The Navy fighter plane that he was piloting crashed during a training exercise in the Gulf of Paria in the Caribbean Sea on 2nd June 1943.

In 1972, Iowa football named its stadium in his honour. The special coin was introduced in the 1960s, and has been used in more than 4,000 games at conference stadiums.

Even after 80 years of his retirement, Big Ten keeps working towards nurturing strong student leaders who make a difference in the society.