Walter Werner Winika was an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 player and naval aviator. He played at the end position for Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

 and was selected as a second-team All-American in 1935.

Football player

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Winika attended Manual Training High School. He entered Rutgers University in New Jersey in September 1931. He played for Rutgers varsity football team from 1933 to 1935 and was considered one of the best ends in the East during the 1930s. In 1933, Winika was the only player to score a touchdown against Fritz Crisler

Fritz Crisler

Herbert Orin "Fritz" Crisler was an American football coach who is best known as "the father of two-platoon football," an innovation in which separate units of players were used for offense and defense. Crisler developed two-platoon football while serving as head coach at the University of...

's undefeated 1933 national championship team at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. Winika caught a 45-yard pass for the touchdown in front of 40,000 fans at Princeton. He was selected by the Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 as a second-team All-American at the end position on the 1935 College Football All-America Team

1935 College Football All-America Team

The 1935 College Football All-America team is composed of college football players who were selected as All-Americans by various organizations and writers that chose College Football All-America Teams for the 1935 college football season...

. He was selected as a member of the all-time All-Rutgers football team in 1940.

Military service and death

Winika received a Bachelor of Science degree in education in June 1936. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in May 1939 and received his commission as an ensign in July 1940 and as a lieutenant in December 1941. In July 1942, Winika was killed when the plane he piloted crashed while on patrol near Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

. Nine members of the crew were killed in the crash. Winika was the first varsity athlete from Rutgers to die in World War II. He was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

After Winika's death, members of his fraternity, Alpha Rho of Chi Psi Fraternity, established the "Walter W. Winika 1936 Fund" using insurance funds and gifts from friends and classmates. The Winika Fund formed the basis of the Alpha Rho Memorial Foundation established in 1948.