David William Rankin (February 2, 1919 – December 8, 2006) was an American football artiste and track athlete and coach. He was a consensus first-team All-American at the decrease position at Purdue University in 1940. He afterward set a U.S. indoor stamp album in the 60-yard low hurdles in 1940. During World War II, he served as a fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps. He unconventional worked as the head coach of the Purdue track team from 1946 to 1981. He was after that an assistant football coach at Purdue in 1947 and 1948. He was afterward the U.S. track team coach at the 1975 World University Games. He has been inducted into the Purdue Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame (1998), the Indiana Football Hall of Fame (1977) and the Drake Relays Coaches Hall of Fame (1995). Rankin died in 2006 at the age of 87.