Nimitz as an Ensign did ground his ship and was court martialed & received a letter of letter of reprimand. Given the technology of the day for navigation was likely why I'm guessing and far more common than today. Today as far as I know it's a career ending mistake.
Stennis was a professional lifetime politician having never served. He got his name on a CVN for simply pushing for a larger fleet.
Nimitz was one of the greatest military leaders ever to have served this country. I put him up there with Washington from a military leadership perspective.
After Pearl Harbor, the morale was extremely low in the staff at Pearl who had served under Adm. Husband Kimmel. The stink of association was on them, and they all knew that their mere association with him might mean the end of any further advancement, so they were depressed and brooding. When Nimitz took over, one of the first things he did was get the entire staff of officers together, and tell them he was keeping them on. IIRC, he said they could ask for transfers if they wished, but he hoped they would stay, because he expected they could do a fine job and help win the war in their current jobs.
It was like an elixir. I don’t recall if anyone left, but those men loved him for it, and they worked their asses off to live up to his trust and generosity.
I also loved two other stories about him (I hope I remember them correctly):
Nimitz was the commanding officer of a cruiser (the Augusta, I believe) and took the helm from a junior officer as the ship was coming in to dock without the aid of any tugs. He misjudged both his speed and approach, and only a full reverse and luck saved him from a damaging encounter with the pier. After the ship was safely tied up, he turned to face the junior officer he had assumed the helm from, and said in a direct and unwavering, severe tone of voice something like “Lt. Smith, what did I do wrong?” Lt. Smith gulped, and then proceeded to critique his commanding officer’s performance. When he was done, Capt. Nimitz said “That’s right. Don’t forget it.” It is probable that young Lt. never, ever forgot those concepts when docking a ship, and was likely very good at it. And it isn’t too hard to predict just how he felt about his commanding officer after that. One can easily see this officer telling the story to other people over the years, and ending with “I never served under a finer man. I would have done anything for him.”
The other thing (as you referenced in your excellent post, cva66snipe) was that he was well known for was his penchant for taking each case of poor performance in a task on its own merits, and not administering discipline for a given infraction simply because that was the punishment called for or it was the way others did it. As you said, he escaped the “traditional” punishment for grounding a ship (relief of command and end of career which even to this day, is almost always simply a done deal) as a young officer in the Philippines when he ran aground. As he progressed in his career, he remembered that, and one of his fondest sayings was “Every dog deserves a second bite.” One can only imagine all those dogs who got that “second bite” who would have done anything never to let Nimitz down after that.
A great man, and if any man ever deserved to have a super carrier named after him, it was Chester Nimitz.