start of every Big Ten football game bears his image, and each captain of a Big Ten team receives one such coin at the end of the year. Shortly after his death, a memorial fund was established at the University of Iowa in his honor. The Nile Kinnick Memorial Scholarship Fund is awarded annually to outstanding student-athletes at Iowa. His number #24 has been retired, one of only two Iowa football numbers so recognized (Cal Jones' #62 is the other). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in the Hall's inaugural year in 1951, one of only two Hawkeye players so honored (Duke Slater was the other). In 1989, Iowa fans selected an all-time University of Iowa football team during the 100th anniversary celebration of Iowa football. Nile Kinnick was not only selected to the team as a halfback, he was voted the team's MVP, or the most valuable player in the first century of Iowa football. Kinnick was one of just five football players inducted into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in the Hall's inaugural year in 1951, joining Duke Slater, Aubrey Devine, Jay Berwanger, and Elmer Layden. In 1999, Sports Illustrated selected Nile Kinnick as the third greatest sports figure in the history of the state of Iowa, behind only Dan Gable and Kinnick's youth baseball teammate, Bob Feller. College Football News ranked Kinnick as the ninth greatest college football player of all-time. An Iowa City theater produced a play based on Kinnick's life. Four books have been written about Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeyes. Sports Illustrated chose Kinnick as a starting defensive cornerback on its all-20th century college football team (players in Kinnick's time played both offense and defense, and sometimes special teams as well). Deion Sanders was the other starting cornerback. The reserve cornerbacks were Rod Woodson, Charles Woodson, Jim Thorpe, and John Lattner. Renaming Iowa Stadium Calls to rename Iowa Stadium in Nile Kinnick's honor came immediately after the Heisman trophy winner's death in 1943. In November 1945 the University of Iowa student body voted to rededicate the structure as "Nile Kinnick Memorial Stadium". The other options on the student ballot were "Memorial Stadium" and "Robert Jones Stadium", after the first University of Iowa student to be killed in World War II. Upon announcement of the student vote the new name was taken up by The Daily Iowan student newspaper,