Bruce Smith

I am watching a great piece on Minnesota legend Bruce Smith on ESPN's OTL.  A tape of Smith's Heisman speech has come to light recently and it forms the centerpiece of the segment.  Smith, winning the award two days after Pearl Harbor, speaks eloquently of how America had changed two days prior and how his generation had a new challenge.  Great stuff and the young player's ability to touch on the sensitive subject shows just how more mature 21-year-olds were then compared to now.  Smith was soon in the Navy, while his 1939 predecessor, Nile Kinnick, would end up dying on a training flight less than two years later.  Smith would come home from the war although he died too young in 1967 from cancer.