Iowa football was clearly struggling as 1939 began, and the entire athletic department was in poor financial shape. The debt on Iowa Stadium grew by the year, and Iowa had finished among the worst three teams in the league standings every year in the 1930s except 1933. Iowa's new coach, Dr. Eddie Anderson, felt the Hawks, lacking depth, could still be a good team in 1939, but only if the starters played all sixty minutes. Thus, the 1939 Hawkeye football team, nicknamed the Ironmen, became one of the greatest teams in school history and certainly the most romanticized.