only 31 passes and ran for 374 yards. He was involved in 16 of the 19 touchdowns (11 passing, 5 rushing) that Iowa scored and was involved in 107 of the 130 points that Iowa scored that year. He played 402 of a possible 420 minutes that season. All told, Kinnick set 14 school records, six of which still stand over 65 years later. At the end of the season, Nile Kinnick won virtually every major award in the country. He was a consensus First-Team All-American, and he appeared on every first team ballot to become the only unanimous selection in the AP voting. He won the Big Ten MVP award by the largest margin in history. He also won the Maxwell Award and the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. Nile Kinnick even won the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year, beating out such notables as Joe DiMaggio, Byron Nelson, and Joe Louis. He was the first college football player to win that award. On November 28, 1939, Nile Kinnick won the Heisman Trophy, becoming to date the only Iowa Hawkeye to win college football's most prestigious award. Heisman Trophy speech Upon receiving the Heisman at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City, Kinnick made the following statement during his acceptance speech: Bill Cunningham of the Boston Post wrote in response, "This country's okay as long as it produces Nile Kinnicks. The football part is incidental." AP reporter Whitney Martin wrote, "You realized the ovation (after his Heisman speech) wasn't alone for Nile Kinnick, the outstanding college football player of the year. It was also for Nile Kinnick, typifying everything admirable in American youth." Another observer said that Kinnick's remarks "tackled Demosthenes and threw Cicero for a 15-yard loss." The University of Iowa recently began playing an excerpt from the speech on the Kinnick Stadium scoreboard before "The Star-Spangled Banner" at every Hawkeye home game. Inconclusive claims Minnesota tryout Nile Kinnick's college choice came down to Iowa and the University of Minnesota. Minnesota was one of the dominant college football programs in the nation, while Iowa was a struggling program. Some sources state that Kinnick traveled to Minneapolis for a tryout with the Gophers, but that the Gophers rejected him. Some even suggest that Minnesota's legendary coach, Bernie Bierman, stated himself that Kinnick was "too small and too slow" to play for Minnesota. Whether or not this tryout actually