The Abel Hall dorm room wasn’t big enough that August day, 1971.
Picture the scene. Squeezed between concrete walls, a couple desks and single beds stand the following men:
Bob Devaney, head coach of the defending national champions. Top assistant coaches Tom Osborne and Monte Kiffin. Plus, Husker basketball head coach Joe Cipriano and assistant Moe Iba. How’s that for influence?
They’re all staring at a crew-cut, husky 18-year-old from Aurora who’s on the verge of tears.
What are you gonna do, Tom?
Tom Kropp, at this moment, is perhaps the most revered high school athlete in Nebraska history.
Who else throws a no-hitter in the Class B state legion championship series and scores 45 points in his last high school basketball game and heaves the discus 182 feet, the second-best mark in Nebraska prep history? Just 10 days earlier in the Shrine Bowl, Kropp’s performance prompted opposing coach Dallas Dyer, a former Husker himself, to conclude: “He is the finest high school football player I’ve ever seen.”
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Tom Kropp, left, was one of three running backs on the South squad in the Nebraska Shrine Bowl in 1971. The World-Herald described them as a "husky trio" with Kropp weighing in at 243 pounds; Tony Davis, middle, from Tecumseh, at 205 and Andy Wilson from Bellevue at 210. Davis went on to play a prominent role at Nebraska as a fullback in 1973, '74 and '75.
Of course, Devaney won’t lose his prized recruit without a fight. Thirteen days from the 1971 season opener, the magnetic Irishman delivers his best sales pitch.
“If you leave,” Devaney says, “you’ll always wonder if you could play Big Eight football.”
Tom can’t bear to look him in the eye. Can't bear to disappoint these men. But for all the firepower present in Abel Hall, the voice of wisdom Kropp needs most hasn’t arrived yet.
He’s just rolling into Lincoln.
* * *
Back up a few years because the road to Devaney’s front door takes a few turns.
Just like those weekend afternoons in Aurora, when young Tom Kropp plotted his path to exhaustion. He studied the town of 3,000 people. He counted 17 baskets between the high school, the junior high and friends’ garages.
After lunch, he left home with his basketball and stopped at hoop No. 1 for his season opener: Broken Bow.
Tom Kropp in action against the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1973.
He played 10-15 minutes, honing his best moves — “one against zero.” Then he dribbled down the street to the next hoop. Who’s next? Albion? Another 10-15 minutes. Then Central City and Superior and Fairbury. By 5 p.m., he’s soaked yet undefeated.
“I had a pretty good imagination,” Kropp said.
What Tom Kropp didn’t have was athleticism. You couldn’t find his bones under the baby fat. He wasn’t fast. Didn’t jump high. Couldn’t even do a push-up!
“What you look for in an athlete,” said Aurora football coach Rollie Carter, “I didn’t see that much in Tom.”
“Just wait,” Bill Kropp told Carter. Just wait.
Tom’s dad knew the power of desire. He was a child of the Great Depression. Orphaned by his parents, both dead before his 13th birthday. Bill and 12 siblings separated into homes across Stanton, Nebraska, whomever could help.
Bill graduated high school in 1945, just before World War II ended. He joined the Marines and landed in New York City, unloading bodies from the front lines. In his free time, he joined the base basketball team. He was hooked.
At 21, he returned home and found his high school sweetheart. Delores had her own scars. Her dad died. Her mom attempted suicide. Pulled the trigger on a .22 and paralyzed herself from the waist down.
Bill and Delores married Jan. 8, 1949, just as the worst blizzard in Nebraska history suffocated the state. Drifts 50 feet high! They endured.
One year later, Bill was a basketball standout at Wayne State when their baby arrived premature. John spent several weeks in a Norfolk hospital incubator as Bill scraped up every penny he had — roughly $300 — to pay the bill.
At home in GI housing — a Quonset hut — Delores turned on the oven and set the baby on the open door just to keep him warm.
Mary was born in ’51, Judy in ’52, Tom in February ’53. Four babies, three years.
They bounced around northeast Nebraska as Bill taught school and sports. They owned nothing and shared everything. One Christmas, the family tree was bare underneath when his uncle and aunt showed up with a six-pack of 16-ounce Coca Cola bottles.
“What a thrill that was,” Tom said.
But Tom’s first love wasn’t sugar, it was Jelly Bell. “Sh--,” Tom said, “this cat was my life.”
One day, his brother came down with an impetigo rash. Bill took him to the doctor and paid another bill he could barely afford. Then a sister got the fungus, too. Who’s the culprit?
Oh no.
Bill threw Jelly Bell in the car and took a drive out to the country. When Tom came home from kindergarten, he started asking questions.
“Ten days later, sh--, I come home and there was that goddamned cat,” Tom said. “On the steps to our front door. And it laid there and died.”
He filled the void with a basketball. The Kropps didn't have toys or bikes, but Bill mounted a hoop on the garage and his boys filled it up.
Sports are so important, Bill said, that he’d move to the smallest town in the state if it enabled his boys to play in high school. That wouldn’t be necessary.
Kearney State's Tom Kropp, left, and older brother, John. The two played basketball together at Kearney State in 1972.
In 1962, Bill accepted the head basketball job at Class B Aurora. Their first house shook when trucks rolled down the highway. On Christmas Eve, the four kids walked out of church and received a sack: an apple, an orange, a Snickers and a plastic nativity scene, a couple inches tall. The same figurine the youngest Kropp puts on his Christmas tree to this day.
Tom Kropp, you’ll come to learn, never forgets his roots.
* * *
Sunday afternoon. Everybody to the basement. One kid polishes, one shines, another finishes with a rag. When the Kropps walk into school Monday morning, their shoes look pristine.
It’s funny, Bill rarely mentioned his military service, but his regimen gave it away.
“We used to say around Aurora that Bill Kropp was never discharged,” Rollie Carter said. “He still thinks he’s a Marine. He could be one of the toughest characters you ever saw.”
How many school-bus drivers keep a 12-gauge shotgun at their feet so they can target pheasants after dropping off the last student? Tom loved those 10-mile road hunts.
Bill was happiest in a duck blind or a fishing boat, cigarette dangling from his lips. His favorite term? Hard-nosed. You gotta be hard-nosed!
As a basketball coach, he was no John Wooden with a chalkboard, but Bill ran practices like Camp Lejeune, demanding the finest condition and fundamentals. Kids wondered if they were ever going to practice shooting?! Only after they mastered the full-court press.
Bill didn’t scream like a drill sergeant. But his eyes, according to one player, “just kinda burned through you. You knew you better do better.”
At 6-foot, 185 pounds, Bill was just big enough to intimidate officials, too. One night, he got a technical and demanded another. When the ref threatened to eject the coach, Bill fired back. OK, but you’re going with me. The ref backed down.
“He was gonna take that son of a b---- right out the door with him,” John Kropp said.
Said Carter: “Bill would never, ever allow anybody to push him around.”
Carter assisted Bill and learned the nuances of coaching. How to spot the difference between 95% effort and 100% effort. When to scold and when to encourage. Bill told Carter the first week of practice: If I’m getting on a kid, you pick him up. We should never both be angry.
Most of all, Bill taught Carter how to weather a storm. Put your head down and endure it. When Carter’s wife died of cancer at 29, Rollie exited the hospital room and the nurse asked if she should call someone. Call Bill Kropp, he said.
Carter was in the parking lot when Bill arrived. How the hell am I going to go home and tell my two sons that their mother is gone?
Bill's response: "God damn it, you just go do it."
And Carter did.
For all his hard edges, Bill had a soft spot for kids like him.
In Aurora, the “hoods” stood on street corners and smoked cigarettes. The anti-Kropps. Half a dozen times, Tom saw one with new shoes, new shirt and new pants from Dean Morgan’s men’s store.
“Where’d you get that stuff?”
“From your dad.”
One student came to school in the same clothes almost every day. A rash covered his ankles and elbows. “Hell,” Carter said, “he probably never had a bath.”
Bill called the kid out of study hall daily to the coaches office, where he treated the skin. “But the thing that really helped that kid was what he and Bill Kropp talked about. Because Bill was working with his mind. And the kid turned out to be a pretty darned good citizen of Aurora.”
Played four sports, too.
That’s the thing — Bill was always recruiting. Always opening the gym. Always inviting kids to the driveway for basketball games. Bill joined the action because — here’s another lesson — demonstration is the best form of coaching.
“Some of the best basketball you ever saw took place in Bill Kropp’s driveway,” Carter said.
His first Aurora teams struggled, but Bill knew the kids in the driveway were growing up. And when everyone else saw them on Friday nights — when all the little kids messing around in the commons area started paying attention — look out, Bill said.
“They’ll start to play that way, too.”
* * *
John and his friends led Aurora’s sports resurgence in the late-'60s, but Tom produced the headlines.
So what if he couldn’t do a push-up or pull-up. He dominated every ball he touched, including local punt, pass and kick competitions. At 13, he qualified for regionals in Minneapolis, boarding his first plane and staying in his first hotel.
Chuck Taylor, left, the famed ex-professional basketball player and coach whose name adorns the iconic canvas Converse basketball shoe, made an appearance at Nebraska Weslayan's basketball clinic in 1954, passing out pointers to, among others, Bill Kropp, second from right. Left to right are Taylor; Bob Moore, Clarkson star; Larry Fuerst, Midland College's high scoring forward; coach Bill Kropp of Clarkson; and coach Mark Haight of Midland. Bill Kropp is the father of Tom Kropp, the future player and coach at Kearney State and UNK.
Tom competed at halftime of the Lions-Vikings game. He got a glimpse at big-time sports. What it felt like. He won in Minnesota, advancing to Baltimore in December 1966. Kropp entered an elevator with his parents, the Aurora Ford dealer and four prominent faces:
Colts coach Don Shula and his quarterback, Johnny Unitas. Packers coach Vince Lombardi and his quarterback, Bart Starr.
The 13-year-old shook off his sense of awe. The next day at halftime, he heaved a regulation football 51 yards on national TV.
Tom came up short in the national final, but Aurora thought he was a big deal. Tom thought he was a big deal, too. Until his seventh-grade basketball coach kicked him off the team for getting a big head.
What?!?
“God, I remember going home that night and trying to figure out how I was going to tell my dad.”
Next day, the Kropps met with the coach. Tom apologized and received a reprieve. “That humbled me big-time.”
By ninth grade, the components of a teenage superstar lined up: A hard-driving, ever-present dad who coached all three Aurora sports. An older, competitive brother. A community on fire to win. Tom needed just one thing to cap it off: a rope.
How many hundreds of hours did he jump?! His fatigue reached a saturation point and, like a marathon runner, he just kept going.
As his dad preached, you can learn to embrace hard work just as easy as you can learn to avoid it. When good players feel agony, Tom said, they disassociate it from their actions. They block it out. Great athletes do the opposite.
“They feel that pain and fatigue and they like it.”
Going into 10th grade, an Aurora friend paid Kropp’s way to the very first Cornhusker football camp outside Central City’s Lake Mary Ranch Camp. Each session spanned four days, featuring appearances from Husker players and coaches. Kiffin. Warren Powers. Kent McCloughan. Even Devaney.
The leader was Nebraska’s 31-year-old redhead assistant.
Nebraska assistant Tom Osborne, right, and head coach Bob Devaney in 1969. Osborne had his eye on Tom Kropp for years and recruited him hard as the youngster worked his way through Aurora High School.
Keep in mind, this was June 1968. Husker football was coming off a 6-4 season. Tom Osborne was still a year away from reshaping Devaney’s offense. But he saw something in Tom Kropp.
"Big kid. Kinda pudgy,” Osborne said, looking back. “Looked like he might be a football player someday."
What are you doing the next two weeks? Osborne said.
Construction crew, Kropp said. Adding onto a farmhouse outside Aurora.
Kropp reported to work Monday and Osborne showed up, too, asking the foreman if Kropp could work the camp instead. True to Osborne’s vision, Tom developed into a football star. An anchor of an Aurora program that went 24-3 his last three seasons.
As a senior, Carter said, “he was our defense.”
One opposing quarterback marveled at the way Kropp flattened him, then lifted him up, then helped put his helmet back on. “Finally, he led me out of his huddle and back to my own huddle.”
A young Tom Kropp represented Nebraska in the finals of the national Punt, Pass and Kick competition in 1967. In a preliminary round at halftime of a Baltimore Colts game on national television, he heaved a football 51 yards when he was 13. This photo was taken one month later at Miami in the finals.
Kropp could kick, punt, snap, pass, catch. He broke his ankle sophomore year and didn’t go to the sidelines.
“Hell, it was a life-changing experience for me to coach Tom,” Carter said. “I could see him every day in front of me. There’s an example that the harder we work, the better we are.”
By senior year, Tom could finally beat his dad 1-on-1 in the driveway, but the old Marine didn't back off.
Bill Kropp had a good strategy during practice. Hold Tom to such a high standard — come down on him so hard — that his teammates will pity him and rally around him, strengthening their bond.
Tom didn’t lack for support. When a newspaper reporter asked an Aurora 8-year-old why he cut his hair so short during the shaggy '70s, the kid said: “Mister, I’m from Kropp country.”
On the road, strangers flocked to see Tom for the first time.
Doug Holtmeier remembered seeing Kropp at Lexington, where Holtmeier’s dad was an assistant. “I literally thought he had 50 points and 30 rebounds. He was all over the place.”
The next day’s paper said Lexington “held” Kropp to 28. “Are you kidding me?” Holtmeier said.
Kropp’s first three games as a senior, he scored 36 on Broken Bow, 32 on Albion, 45 on Minden. In February, he put 57 on Superior. Against Omaha Cathedral, Kropp’s 41 included a 40-foot game-tying hook shot at the buzzer; Aurora lost in overtime. He averaged 33 a game.
Bill Kropp’s teams always fast breaked. But the ’71 Huskies blazed new trails because Kropp, at 6-3, was the only starter over 6-foot. Aurora, one observer said, resembles “a mother bear and four cubs.”
At the 1971 state tournament, the Class B bracket was loaded with talent. As Aurora’s bus rolls up to Pershing Auditorium, Kropp peeled oranges. One, two, three. The nerves did a number on him. Walking into the arena, orange juice stained Kropp’s white jersey.
You wonder what Joe Paterno thought of that — the young Penn State coach was there to recruit Kropp. Behind Kropp’s 35 points and 21 rebounds, Aurora blitzed Laurel, 91-71, setting up a semifinal showdown with Fairbury.
The same Fairbury team that Aurora hammered during the regular season. This time, a tug-of-war ensued between Kropp and future Husker Bob Siegel.
Kropp scored 45 and Aurora protected a one-point lead in the final minute when a Husky teammate lost focus and flipped a lazy pass to Kropp. A Fairbury defender sliced between them, raced the other way and scored.
Almost 50 years have passed and Tom Kropp has lost hundreds of games since. But that one — that play — stings the most.
“Because of my dad.”
* * *
What’s next? A college decision complicated by 75 scholarship offers and persistent indecision.
Tom didn’t string anyone along; Bill made sure of that. But while most prospects chose their colleges in February, Kropp waited until basketball was over. Then track — he won the Class B shot and discus again.
Tom Kropp of Aurora throws the discus as a senior in 1971 at the state track and field meet in Kearney. Kropp won the Class B shot put and discuss.
“He is the best example of young manhood we have ever known,” his track coach said.
Osborne, a little more feisty in those days, confronted the kid he’d courted for three years. What do we have to do to get you to Nebraska? Do you want me to have the governor issue a proclamation?
Osborne heard that Kropp is considering John Wooden.
UCLA?!? You’re not going to UCLA. If you like warm weather, we'll get three plane tickets for you, your mom and your dad. We’re going to send you to Hawaii.
The notion of Nebraska’s top athlete turning down the Huskers for Kearney State — just months after Devaney’s 1970 national championship! — seems preposterous. He wouldn’t even get a full ride at the NAIA school!
But all three of Kropp’s siblings were at Kearney State. He wanted to play one year of college basketball with John. And playing two sports, as he wished, was tough in Lincoln because Nebraska football extended through New Year’s Day.
The biggest factor was Kropp’s small-town inferiority complex that clashed with his drive for greatness.To put it bluntly, Kropp was scared.
“Do you know how many scholarships Nebraska had in 1971?” Tom said. “180!” The signing class featured 45, including 20 in-state kids.
Kropp remembered a Plattsmouth quarterback going to Lincoln in '68 and sitting the bench. If he can’t play at Nebraska, John told Tom, you sure as hell can’t.
Kropp eventually signed his letter-of-intent to NU. But on his spring recruiting trip to Lincoln, Tom and host Chuck Jura challenged two football players to a pick-up game at the Coliseum. The guy guarding Kropp "just abused me," he said. "He physically annihilated me."
Who was that? Kropp asked afterward. Husker fullback Bill Olds, Jura said. And he hasn’t been good enough to play for Devaney.
Kropp shuddered. “How the hell am I ever going to play here?”
His final decision became a source of summer drama for Nebraska sports fans. It dragged all the way into August, when Kropp started Shrine Bowl practices.
Omaha Ryan’s George Mills, a South squad teammate, looked at Kropp with suspicion. Baby face. Crew cut. A roly-poly 245 pounds? And quiet as a mouse. Mills concluded that Kropp was media hype.
Then at practice one day, players launched into the blocking sled. Each time, the sled lifted a couple feet off the ground. Until it was Kropp’s turn.
"He sprinted with an uncanny grace for a man his size," Mills wrote later, "and he hit it with an explosiveness not exhibited by any of the other guys. He flipped the sled completely over. There was sudden silence as everyone was stunned by what they had just seen.
"Then we whooped and hollered and congratulated Tom as he trotted back to the end of the line. The two coaches conducting the drill looked at each other, shaking their heads, and then laughed as they walked over to lift the sled."
On Aug. 21, 1971, 18,000 fans endured a 95-degree afternoon at Memorial Stadium to see the state’s best blue-chippers.
Kropp scored all 16 points for the South team, including a 29-yard field goal. His 1-yard plunge in the final minute took the lead, then he sealed it by intercepting a North pass.
Afterward, a line of people waited to congratulate him, including Jeff Kinney, Van Brownson, Jerry Tagge and Husker coaches. Shrine Bowl officials asked him if he wanted to be player of the game for offense or defense. Offense, Tom said.
Devaney called Kropp’s Shrine Bowl performance the best he’d seen in his 10 years in Lincoln. All the praise finally convinced Kropp he was ready for Nebraska. Devaney sighed with relief.
“He is a great football player, a very fine young man and will be a credit to our university and our athletic program.”
* * *
A week later, Kropp arrived at his dorm with his entire high school wardrobe: five shirts and two pairs of pants. Devaney and Cipriano took him downtown to buy new clothes. (Contrary to legend, they did not give him a car).
He attended a freshman football meeting and registered for classes. When he checked out his equipment, he scanned the fullback depth chart.
“Do you know where I was listed on the depth chart? Seventh.”
Uh oh. Cold feet again.
Two nights before classes, Tom couldn’t sleep. He took a walk. Campus was dark and he didn’t know his way, but he found Memorial Stadium. He approached the gates. Envisioned his life inside. The attention and pressure and possibility of getting swallowed up in a Sea of Red.
The next day, Sunday, he called his dad. Can you come pick me up?
When he broke the news to Husker coaches, they hustled to Abel Hall. (Poor roommate Tom Humm had to take a hike).
Devaney had never lost an in-state player of Kropp’s caliber. Three months before the Game of the Century, Devaney kept pounding the same drum.
If you leave, Tom, you’re always going to wonder if you could’ve played Big Eight football.
“I’m 18 years old and I had tears coming out of my eyes,” Kropp said. “At that point, I didn’t know what to do.”
That’s about the time Bill Kropp walked in. Devaney lingered a few more minutes, alerting Tom to the storm he’s going to stir up. If you leave, he said, you’re sure going to find out the difference between your friends and your fans.
One more time, Devaney pounded the drum: “You’ll always wonder …”
And then the coaches cleared out. And it was just Tom and Bill Kropp, sitting on the beds. A few minutes passed. Silence.
All of a sudden, Bill got up and started putting Tom’s stuff in cardboard boxes.
“Sh--,” he said. “I played at Wayne State College for four years and I never once wondered if I could’ve played in the Big Eight Conference.”
For better or worse, a Nebraska folk hero listened to his father. And for nearly 50 years since, he’s heard Bill Kropp’s growl in the back of his head. From Kearney to Washington, D.C. to Chicago to Belgium and back.
That Sunday night, they retreated to Grand Island, where Bill had taken a new coaching job. And the next morning, Tom’s older brother drove him the rest of the way to Kearney, where he’d soon redefine the athletic department, first as a two-sport All-American, then as a basketball head coach.
“Since I’ve changed my mind,” Kropp said in September 1971, “I’ve felt like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
“I’m here to stay.”
The Nebraska 100: Our greatest athletes
After his days as a three-sport standout at McCook, Jeff Kinney came to Nebraska in 1968 to play quarterback. But two other QBs also joined the Huskers that season. So Kinney moved to flanker and eventually I-back, and that's where he flourished over the next three seasons.
Decorated college and high school football and wrestling star. High school teacher, coach and administrator. But Charles Bryant was foremost a pioneer. Bryant, an all-state athlete at Omaha South before graduating in 1950, became the first black football player of the modern era at Nebraska in 1952.
George Flippin was once described by Lincoln Star sports editor Cy Sherman as a "charged bull, into which was bred the tenacity of the bulldog, the ferocity of the tiger and the gameness of the man who knows no fear." He was Nebraska's first black athlete, in 1891, before black athletes were banned by the university from 1917 until the late 1940s.
Former Broken Bow cowboy Paul Tierney has won arguably the two most prestigious titles in rodeo. He finished his 10-year professional career by topping $1 million in career earnings, and his 2008 induction into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame makes him the most accomplished cowboy from Nebraska.
Shelby, Nebraska, is one of the flattest towns in one of the flattest states in America. The elevation difference between the highest and lowest points is 7 feet. It is literally a town without a hill, one of the last places you’d expect to produce an Olympic gold medalist in bobsled. But that didn't stop Tomasevicz.
Rhodes did it all. The Ansley native held three state high school track records at the same time (vault, long jump, high jump); was player-coach of Ansley’s first football team in 1920, which went undefeated that season; helped Ansley win a pair of state basketball titles; and played baseball. After graduating from high school in 1922, Rhodes went on to earn eight varsity letters at Nebraska — three in football and track, and two in baseball.
No. 94, Christina Houghtelling
After a stellar three-sport high school career at Cambridge, Houghtelling surprised many by signing to play volleyball instead of basketball at NU.
Even though basketball had been her first love, she’s never regretted the decision.
Ruud is Nebraska’s all-time leading tackler with 432 stops. As a senior captain in 2004, he was a third-third All-American, a first-team All-Big 12 performer and NU’s defensive MVP. He was selected in the second round of the NFL draft. Ruud played eight NFL seasons, leading Tampa Bay in tackles for four of those.
Trotter starred at Omaha Creighton Prep, where he was a two-time all-state selection, and was Nebraska's first — and only — player named to the McDonald's High School All-American team.
Grand Island coach Doug Whitman once noted that swimmer Scott Usher was "one to watch." As it turned out, the entire country had the chance to watch Usher. Usher finished seventh in the 200 breaststroke in the 2004 Olympics and in 2008 fell just short of returning for a second Olympics.
Ron Kellogg is considered one of the best pure shooters in Nebraska prep history. The Omaha Northwest grad wasn't bad in college, either, according to then-Kansas coach Larry Brown.
Skinny 14-year-old Geddes left his father, eight brothers and eight sisters in Jacksonville, Florida, and arrived at Boys Town in 1962. Geddes had played football just once before arriving but took such a beating in a sandlot game against older players that he didn’t plan to play again. But Boys Town coach Skip Palrang spotted him and talked him into giving it a try. He eventually thrived and helped the Cowboys win a state title.
The 1978 Holdrege graduate turned down multiple scholarship offers from other schools, including a football and track package from Iowa State, to walk on with the Nebraska football team. The 150-pound walk-on became an integral part of the Husker offense. The three-year starter ranked in the top 10 in receptions and yards by the time he left in 1982.
While a career in the NBA never materialized for the Omaha Benson and Iowa graduate, Woolridge played overseas for 13 years. Leagues in Turkey, France, Germany, Venezuela, Israel and Cyprus. And the money was good. "To do what I loved professionally for 13 years, I can't complain about it," he said in 2013.
Louise Pound, in so many fields, was the trailblazer for women's athletics in the state. And this while becoming a preeminent educator in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English department over a half-century. In 1890, Pound won the Lincoln city tennis championship. She captured the university's men's singles and doubles titles in 1891 and 1892 — the only female in school history to receive a men's varsity letter.
No. 85, Peaches (James) Keaton
The best softball teams used to hail only from the West Coast. Keaton changed that. The former Papillion-La Vista and Nebraska star put Nebraska softball on the map with her dominating presence and performances in the pitcher's circle.
Once the last player to survive the cut on Nebraska's recruiting board, Noonan ultimately became a household Husker name. He earned first-team All-America honors and was named the Big Eight athlete of the year as a senior. His 12 sacks that season are tied for third in school history, and his 24 career sacks are tied for fourth.
John Parrella was Nebraska raised, the pride of Grand Island. NU defensive coordinator Charlie McBride once ranked him among the top three defensive tackles he had ever coached.
One press clipping described Hopp, a first baseman and outfielder, as "a dynamo who, perhaps more than anyone else, typifies the dashing, hell-for-leather play” of the St. Louis Cardinals. Hopp's 14-year career spanned five teams and as many World Series appearances, including back-to-back World Series victories with the Yankees. In all, he won four World Series and was an All-Star in 1946, when he hit .333 and drove in 48 runs for the Boston Braves.
Born in Holdrege in 1939 and raised near Axtell, Anderson began his quest at an early age and eventually built a makeshift shooting range as a high school senior at Axtell. After attending Nebraska for one year, Anderson joined the U.S. Army so he could pursue his Olympic dream.
Hare picked Nebraska from a slew of offers after starting for four years for Omaha Tech, where he averaged 26.4 points a game as a senior in 1963. Tech won the Class A title that year after going 22-2 and cruising through the state tournament by an average of 21 points a game. That team was voted into the Omaha Sports Hall of Fame and recently was chosen as having one of the best starting fives in Nebraska high school sports history.
Osborne remains just one of two men to win The World-Herald’s high school (1955) and state college (1959) athlete of the year awards. In high school, Osborne was all-state in football and basketball in 1954-55 and helped Hastings win a state title on the hardwood. In track, he won the discus at the state meet and placed second in the 440-yard dash. The future coach and congressman also stood out on the baseball diamond and had a pro football career.
Hoppen turned down a Kentucky scholarship offer. He also said no to Notre Dame, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado. And yes to Nebraska. Between 1982 and 1986, the 6-foot-11 center became NU’s all-time leading scorer, and he did it with clinical efficiency.
The only native Nebraskan to win a national wrestling championship at NU, Vering took his success to the international level, representing the U.S. in a pair of Olympics, claiming a world silver medal and winning gold at a Pan Am Games.
As a junior, Henry won golds for Bellevue West in the 200, 400 and long jump. Henry went on to set a national age-group record in the long jump and was part of the USA Junior World Team in 1995. At Nebraska, Henry won the NCAA indoor and outdoor long jump titles in 1996. All told, Henry was a three-time Big 12 champion and a 10-time All-American.
Kindig-Malone won gold medals at state in the long jump, hurdles and relays, but it wasn’t until she started getting scholarship offers from UCLA, Iowa and NU that she realized she might be good. Later, she won Big Eight heptathlon and pentathlon titles at Nebraska, becoming an All-American and helping the Huskers win their first indoor national championship in 1982. Kindig-Malone also won a Class C state basketball title with Hastings St. Cecilia in 1977.
Sauer and Bernie Masterson — No. 43 on the Nebraska 100 — paired together in the backfield to usher in one of the first great runs for Husker football. The two led Nebraska to Big Six championships in 1931, ’32 and ’33, when the Huskers went undefeated in league play. Sauer was an All-American in 1933 for the second-ranked Huskers. He also lettered in track, baseball and wrestling.
Cantwell, from Crete, won four straight Class B shot put and discus titles, including three consecutive all-class gold medals in the shot. She was a two-time NCAA shot put champion at SMU and was the 2002 U.S. indoor and outdoor champion as well as a 1999 world indoor bronze medalist. Cantwell also competed in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
Orduna lettered at running back for the Huskers in 1967, ’68 and ’70, running for 1,968 yards and 26 touchdowns. The Omaha Central graduate also played three NFL seasons.
A two-way football player even during his professional career with Green Bay, Charles Brock helped revolutionize the linebacker position in the pros while helping the Packers win two NFL championships. The Columbus native was recalled as a fierce competitor by the late Lee Remmel, a team historian who covered the Packers for nearly 30 years.
Lindsey, a Millard North graduate, was a standout defender for Notre Dame, the U.S. national team and San Jose of the WUSA, in which she played three seasons.
The image of Cory Schlesinger barreling into the end zone for the winning touchdown in the 1995 Orange Bowl burns brightly in the memories of Nebraska football fans. Schlesinger did some barreling in his day, but prided himself on being a bruiser. That trait served him well, especially in his 12 years with the Detroit Lions.
Schmidt represented the U.S. in the 2008 Olympics in the 800. Four years later, she returned to run the 800 and 1,500. The Olympic appearances are accompanied by plenty of other honors: a 2006 U.S. indoor 800 championship; a pair of U.S. outdoor silvers in the 800 (2006, 2008); and while with the North Carolina Tar Heels, two outdoor 800 titles and a distance-medley relay championship.
Mann was a jack of all trades, but a master of all of them, too. “Les did everything well. He was tops at football, basketball, track and baseball. He would have been equally great in other sports,” said Mann’s close friend, Scott Dye, in a newspaper account following Mann’s 1962 death in a car accident.
Dan Brand’s path to an Olympic wrestling medal was anything but typical. He competed in football, basketball and track at Bellevue High, but never was all-conference. He made the Nebraska freshman team in basketball, but after being cut, he signed up for the intramural wrestling tournament. He won and went on to compete in the Olympics.
Vinciquerra played football at Tech High and Creighton University, but is better remembered for making the 1936 U.S. Olympic boxing team. A natural heavyweight, he won a national Golden Gloves championship that year as a 175-pounder. He had a pro record of 42 wins (26 by knockout), four losses and five draws from 1937 through 1941, fighting over 20 times in 1937.
The résumé almost seems too much to comprehend. Four-sport star at Lincoln High. Nebraska football great. Pittsburgh Pirates baseball signee. Four-time football All-Pro with the Green Bay Packers.
At Beatrice, Hohn was a four-time state hurdles champion, a state basketball champion and an all-state football player. As a senior in 1960, he was the Nebraska high school athlete of the year.
Lincoln High football went 23-1-1 during Debus' three seasons on the varsity squad. Debus also played basketball and was all-state in American Legion baseball. But his best sport was track and field, where at state he single-handedly nearly doubled the point total of the second-place team.
Skinner won two high school state golf titles, two junior state championships and the 1980 state match-play crown. She went to Oklahoma State, where she was a two-time Big Eight champion and was named Golf Magazine’s 1982 college player of the year. On the LPGA Tour, Skinner won events in 1985, ’86, ’87, ’93, ’94 and ’95 before leaving in 2003.
Woohead rushed for the second-most yards (7,962) in the history of college football in all divisions and won the Harlon Hill Trophy (Division II’s version of the Heisman) twice. He finished his NFL career with 2,238 yards and 15 touchdowns rushing, along with 2,698 yards and 17 touchdowns receiving.
The 6-foot-5, 300-pound offensive tackle was a model of consistency. The three-time all-conference pick flattened plenty of defensive players, with an incredible one sack allowed in 46 career games with the Huskers. As a senior, he captained Tom Osborne's first national title team.
No. 58, Larry Station
A 2009 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame, the former Iowa and Omaha Central great was a two-time All-America linebacker, three-time first-team All-Big Ten selection and an NFL draft pick. At Omaha Central, he was twice named to the All-Nebraska team.
At Nebraska, Cahoy — an Omaha South grad — earned four NCAA national championships — two on the horizontal bar and two on the parallel bars. He made the 1980 U.S. Olympic team.
As a senior in 1985, Rathman produced the best season ever by a Husker fullback. He ran for 881 yards, a position record by 164 yards. He went on to win two Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers in a nine-year NFL career. In 1989, he led NFC running backs with 73 catches, and he capped the season with two touchdowns in a Super Bowl victory over Denver.
A left-hander with a nearly unstoppable fadeaway hook, Witte, a Lincoln High grad, became a three-time All-American (1932-34) at Wyoming. He was the first collegian to score more than 1,000 points in a career (1,069), earning him the nickname "One Grand Witte."
Losing was something Olson never dealt with at Omaha Northwest, going 27-0 with a 0.76 ERA, 276 strikeouts, seven no-hitters — including four in the state playoffs and one in the state championship game — and four state titles before playing at Auburn and being drafted fourth overall in the 1988 MLB draft.
Stecher won the world wrestling championship on July 5, 1915, in Omaha, beating Charlie Cutler in two falls at Rourke Park in front of 15,000 fans. Stecher wore a championship belt studded with 308 diamonds. He became a celebrity across Nebraska. In 1920, he reportedly earned a winner’s purse of $40,000 — four times what Babe Ruth earned the year before.
No. 52, Charles "Deacon" Jones
As a senior, Jones earned all-state honors in football as a halfback and then as a point guard, helping Boys Town win the Class A state basketball championship. But where he really excelled was track. He was the state champion in the mile run, became an All-American at Iowa and was a two-time Olympian.
The first woman from Nebraska to make the U.S. Olympic team, Frost competed in the discus at the 1968 Mexico City Games. In June 2015, at the age of 70, Frost set one world (javelin) and two American records (shot put, discus) for the 70-74 age group. She already owned two USA Track and Field age group records in the discus — 60-64 and 65-69.
A native of St. Paul, Nebraska, Randy Rasmussen was part of one of the great upsets in Super Bowl history when he blocked for Joe Namath in the 1969 win over Baltimore. He was selected in the 12th round of the draft by the Jets. He stayed for 15 seasons and 207 games, including 144 in a row.
No. 49, Karen Dahlgren Schonewise
Schonewise had been a three-sport star at Bertrand High School, earning All-Nebraska honors in volleyball and basketball while winning state titles in the 100-meter low hurdles in 1981 and 1982. She helped Nebraska reach its first national title game in 1986 and won the Honda-Broderick Award, the Heisman Trophy of volleyball, in 1987.
Scott Frost — a Parade All-American in football and a state champion shot-putter in track at Wood River — battled through criticism to lead the Huskers to the 1997 national title. He became the first NU quarterback to accumulate more than 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 passing yards in the same season.
Nicknamed "The Burr Oak" after his hometown, Steinkuhler rode a strong work ethic when he enrolled at Nebraska in 1979 as a freshman. In practices, he prided himself on finishing first in running drills. The effort paid off. Steinkuhler was a starter at guard for Husker teams that were never ranked lower than eighth in his junior or senior years. In his final season, he became one of only 13 players to win both the Lombardi and Outland — the most prestigious awards given to college lineman — and his No. 71 jersey became one of only 17 to ever be retired at Nebraska.
Reynolds garnered All-America honors as he scored 22 touchdowns in the 1950 season and added enough extra points to score 157 points. He finished second in the country with 1,342 yards rushing in just nine games, had eight straight 100-yard games and finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
Hokuf was twice All-Nebraska in football and basketball and state pentathlon champion at Crete High; three-time all-conference in football at Nebraska; two-time All-Big Six in basketball for the Huskers and a charter member of the school’s basketball hall of fame; the 1933 Big Six javelin champion while scoring in three events; played three years in the NFL with the Boston Redskins. Not to mention his versatility for the Husker football team.
Roland "Gip" Locke was called the "greatest of all time" by his coach, Henry Schulte — and for good reason. Locke held world records in the 100 and 220 (20.5 seconds on May 1, 1926). He went on to become the NCAA outdoor champion in both the 100 (9.9) and the 220 (20.9) in 1926. He captained the NU track team in 1925 and '26, and lettered in football and baseball.
Masterson helped lead the Huskers to 23 wins and a tie in 28 games under coach Dana X. Bible, never losing a home game as a Husker quarterback. Elected into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame in 1977, Masterson was also a swimming and track star at Lincoln High and in college.
Presnell was a three-year letter winner at halfback for Nebraska, earning All-Missouri Valley Conference honors in 1926 and 1927. As a senior in 1927, he led the nation in total yards. The two-time All-Pro, who was 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds in his playing days, played halfback, quarterback, safety and kicker in the NFL. Presnell led the league in scoring in 1933 for the Portsmouth Spartans — the forerunners of the Lions.
Born near Blue Springs, Nebraska, he had no opportunity to play high school football. But he quickly caught on to the sport when he went to college at Nebraska Wesleyan. He then transferred to Nebraska, where he played mostly halfback his junior year — scoring on runs of 90, 85, 70 and 58 yards — before moving to end as a senior.
Hooper was All-Nebraska in basketball three times for Alliance High School. She was one of the best players in Nebraska basketball history, finishing first-team All-Big Ten three times, winning Big Ten Player of the Year in 2014 and finishing second at NU in career points and rebounds.
In 1976, Vollertsen led Palmyra to its first state tournament, earning all-state honors. After helping the Americans win bronze at the 1982 world championships, Vollertsen was part of a breakthrough for Team USA. The women won silver at the 1984 Los Angeles Games — the first Olympic medal in volleyball for the U.S.
The 1981 Gothenburg High graduate was named to five Pro Bowls and finished his professional career with 422 receptions, 4,630 yards and 30 touchdowns. But what stands out most in a diverse athletic career that also included All-America football and track and field honors at the University of Wyoming? “My highlight was my senior year of high school football at Gothenburg,” Novacek said.
Forget for a moment that he amassed 3,094 all-purpose yards as a four-year starting halfback for NAIA power Central Oklahoma or that he led the NFL in average yards per kickoff return for Detroit in 1969. It’s the winning time by Williams in a now legendary 100-yard dash that still raises eyebrows — nine-and-a-half seconds.
After winning gold medals at state for Omaha Central in the 100- and 220-yard dashes in 1958, Sayers went to Omaha University to compete in track and football. On the track, he won NAIA championships in the 100 in 1962 and the 100 and 200 in ’63. His 100 time of 10.2 in ’62 was tied for second best in the world, and his 200 time of 21.0 was tied for fifth. He beat future Olympic gold medalist “Bullet” Bob Hayes twice in the 100 during ’62.
No. 35, Terence 'Bud' Crawford
Projected for greatness by the older fighters at the C.W. Boxing Club as a youth, Terence “Bud” Crawford lived up to lofty expectations by becoming a top-ranked amateur and then Omaha’s first world champion. His accomplishments and stardom have continued to skyrocket since these rankings were released in 2015.
The World-Herald’s 1961 high school athlete of the year helped new Husker coach Bob Devaney turn things around in Lincoln. Then, in McCloughan’s third pro season with Oakland, the Raiders went to Super Bowl II.
Gordon started making a name for himself while in high school. He batted .483, had 25 homers and drove in 112 for Lincoln Southeast while twice being named the Gatorade Nebraska Player of the Year. During his junior year with the Huskers, he swept the collegiate baseball awards for player of the year and was an ESPY Award finalist for best male college athlete. He was then drafted by the Kansas City Royals with the second overall pick.
Bob Cerv wasn’t just Nebraska’s first baseball All-American. He was also square in the middle of one of Major League Baseball’s most famous summers. As a senior at NU, Cerv led the nation with an .878 slugging percentage while batting .444. He signed with the Yankees before being traded to Kansas City, where he had his breakout season in 1958.
The Omaha Central and University of Nebraska star was long the standard to which top in-state players were compared. She held the Class A career scoring record of 1,926 points for 31 years. Ivy was WNBA-ready before the women’s pro basketball league ever existed. “I would have impacted that league, if it had come 10 years before,” she said in 2005.
Eric Crouch
He moved into the Cleveland Indians' starting rotation in 1930 and was a mainstay for 15 seasons, leading the American League in ERA at 2.95 in 1933. He also was a solid fielder and led the AL in putouts four times. After 20-win seasons in 1934 and 1935, Harder faced shoulder and elbow injuries for much of the rest of his playing career. He still won another 126 games while pitching through 1947.
Many forecast a sterling political career for the halfback who spurned professional football for law school after his graduation from Iowa in 1939. The Hawkeyes' Heisman winner sadly never got a chance to fulfill those aspirations after being killed when his World War II fighter plane crashed into the Caribbean Sea during a training flight in 1943. The stadium at Iowa was renamed in his honor in 1972, and in 2007, the school unveiled a statue of Kinnick near the stadium's main entrance. The stadium at Omaha Northwest is also named after Kinnick.
Dave Rimington redefined the center position at Nebraska, winning two Outland Trophies and a Lombardi Award before launching a seven-year NFL career. All on one good knee.
With the help of a late growth spurt, Boone blossomed and eventually became a four-time All-Star in the American Basketball Association. He ranks third on the ABA career scoring list with 12,153 points, but he's probably best known for his remarkable ABA-NBA record of 1,041 consecutive games, playing through injuries as severe as separated shoulders.
Following a decorated career at Nebraska, Fischer was taken by the Cardinals in the 17th round of the 1961 NFL draft. He played seven years in St. Louis before signing with the Washington Redskins. Being so small in stature (historically listed at 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds), Fischer seemed to be the guy NFL quarterbacks could pick on. Seventeen seasons later, he had made his mark, being named All-Pro three times and playing in more games (213) than any other NFL cornerback in history.
Nebraska 100:
Tiger couldn't do it. Neither could Jack, Arnie, Phil or Jordan Spieth. Goodman remains the last amateur to win the U.S. Open. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Goodman's accomplishments.
The award that "best exemplifies courage and determination despite all odds in the manner of Nebraska All-America center Tom Novak" is presented annually at the Outland Trophy Award dinner. Novak's fearless and relentless style made him a four-time all-conference pick (All-Big Six honors as a fullback-center in 1946 and ’47 before moving to center, where he was a All-Big Seven honoree in ’48 and ’49), a feat neither accomplished before nor after by a Husker football player.
Tingelhoff, from Lexington, lettered for Nebraska from 1959 to '61. After going undrafted and signing as a free agent, he started 17 straight seasons at center for the Minnesota Vikings, snapping to quarterback Fran Tarkenton and helping Minnesota win 10 Central Division titles and reach the Super Bowl four times. The Vikings lost all four, but Tingelhoff was All-Pro seven times.
At Nebraska, teammates had such respect for Weir's ability that he was named a captain upon joining the varsity football team as a sophomore in 1923. In his second game — and the first at Memorial Stadium — he never left the field in a 24-0 win over Oklahoma. Weir was among the first class inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, and Sports Illustrated picked him for its greatest players of the first half of the 20th century.
Dodds lowered the world record in the indoor mile run twice in 1944 — first at Madison Square Garden, then one week later at Chicago Stadium. He never lost a race at Falls City High School and was named the 1943 winner of the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.
Lloyd Cardwell may have the best nickname in the Nebraska 100. "Wild Hoss of the Plains," courtesy of then-World-Herald sports editor Frederick Ware.
The running back from Seward helped lead Nebraska to Big Six football titles in 1935 and 1936. Scoring 120 points in 24 games during his three-year career, he also played defensive back. In high school, he was twice an All-Nebraska football pick; was second team in basketball; and won three pentathlon and hurdles titles and two long jump crowns at the state meet.
Strickland, a three-sport star at Bellevue West, is the only male athlete to earn All-Nebraska honors in three sports (football, basketball and baseball). In the end, he went with basketball. After a nine-year NBA career, Strickland is glad he followed his heart. He had 3,780 points, 1,317 rebounds, 1,203 assists and 422 steals in 501 games.
When the president calls you a "trailblazer" in person, you know you've done something special. The Omaha South and Omaha University standout was the first black starting quarterback in modern pro football history. He threw for 1,589 yards and 14 touchdowns while rushing for 308 and three scores that season, his only one as an NFL quarterback. He switched positions the following year with the Buffalo Bills and, in 1970, became an All-Pro as a receiver after racking up 1,036 yards and eight touchdown catches.
Weston was a standout in basketball and soccer before graduating from Papillion-La Vista in 1992. But as a volleyball player at Nebraska, she quickly developed into one of the most versatile talents in the country. She was the first recipient of the Morgan trophy, which goes to the nation's top player. She also was voted captain of the U.S. Olympic team that played in the 2000 Sydney Games.
By the time he was finished at Omaha North, the explosive McGee owned 10 Metro scoring records, including an average of 38.1 points per game, and was named the World-Herald high school athlete of the year in 1977. He went to Michigan, where he is second on the Wolverines' all-time scoring list. He took his shooter's touch to the NBA when he was picked by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the 1981 draft. He would play five seasons with the "Showtime" Lakers.
Crawford's 19-year career eventually led to his membership in Cooperstown — one of six native Nebraskans in the Baseball Hall of Fame. His best season was in 107, when he ranked second in the American League in batting average (.323), doubles (34) and triples (17), scored a league-high 102 runs and led the Tigers to the first of three straight losing World Series appearances.
He dominated local headlines throughout the Roaring '20s, first at Omaha Commerce, then at Creighton University and in professional sports. Mahoney played three years for the Chicago Cardinals in the NFL. George Halas signed him to play pro basketball for his Chicago Bruins. The Pittsburgh Pirates also signed him, although he never made it past the minors.
The premier strikeout pitcher of the 1920s with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Vance led the National League in strikeouts for seven consecutive seasons from 1922 through 1928. In 1924, when he received the NL's MVP award, Vance had more strikeouts than the second- and third-place pitchers combined. That year, he achieved the pitchers' Triple Crown — leading the league in wins (28), ERA (2.16) and strikeouts (262) — while throwing 30 complete games.
Hartung was a good diver and wrestler, but in junior high, he told his dad that he would concentrate on gymnastics. By the time he reached high school, he was a star. The 5-foot-5 Hartung led Omaha South to four consecutive state titles, winning 18 gold medals and earning The World-Herald's high school athlete of the year award in 1978. He helped the Huskers win their first national gymnastics title — the first of five in a row — as a freshman. Hartung set NCAA records for individual event championships (seven) and gold medals (11, counting his seven event titles and four team titles).
She ended her high school career with a pocketful of state records and was PrepVolleyball.com’s No. 2 national recruit in 2004, the highest ranking ever for a Nebraska native. As a Husker, Larson was a three-time All-American and led NU to three Final Fours while making her mark in some of the most memorable matches in Husker history. Larson's post-college accolades surpassed even her Nebraska exploits.
Kropp contributed to six state team championships in three sports at Aurora, threw a no-hitter in the state junior Legion baseball tournament, won the shot put at state with a toss of 56 feet, 6 3/4 inches and once heaved the discus 182-10. He once had 41 points at halftime of a high school basketball game and averaged 33 points and 23 rebounds his senior year. He rushed for 1,015 yards his senior season in football. He scored 1,884 points for the Antelopes in basketball. In 2015, the 62-year-old Kropp — the longtime basketball coach at the University of Nebraska at Kearney — announced his retirement after 25 years.
The do-everything running back/linebacker/punter starred at Omaha Central and Nebraska, then spent eight seasons in the NFL, most notably as a four-time Pro Bowler with the Green Bay Packers. Green is the storied franchise's all-time leading rusher with 8,322 yards.
Each year, the Philadelphia Phillies, who retired Ashburn's No. 1 jersey, present the Richie Ashburn Special Achievement Award to "a member of the organization who has demonstrated loyalty, dedication and passion for the game." Ashburn had a 15-year major league career, playing for the Phillies, the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets. In 1963, he began a 35-year career on the Phillies broadcast team.
Seven world records and two Olympic Games in middle-distance running were a pretty good way for things to turn out for a guy who started as a sprinter. He has seven world records, including in the 800 at the 1928 Olympic Trials and the 3,520-yard relay as part of the United States' team in 1926.
Rodgers first attracted attention as a four-sport athlete at Omaha Tech, earning All-Nebraska honors in football and excelling in baseball, track and basketball. He moved on to Nebraska, where he contributed heavily to national championship teams in 1970 and '71, and won the 1972 Heisman. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2000 and was named the best Nebraska player of the 20th century.
Boozer averaged more than 19 points and 10 rebounds during his final three seasons at Kansas State, helping the Wildcats go 62-15 during his playing career. In his senior season, Boozer averaged a then-school-record 25.6 points and was named a first-team All-American for the second time. He was the No. 1 pick of the 1959 NBA draft, but he postponed his professional career in order to remain eligible for the 1960 Olympics, where he averaged 6.8 points in eight games and helped the U.S. win by an average of 42 points en route to a gold medal.
No. 3, Grover Cleveland Alexander
Alexander was a heavyweight for the old-school crowd. He was 373-208 from 1911 through 1930. Only Cy Young and Walter Johnson earned more wins, and Alexander is second all time with 90 shutouts. He went 28-13 in his rookie year. The once-mediocre Phillies were in the World Series (losing to the Red Sox) by 1915, Alexander’s first of three straight 30-win seasons. In 1915, he had an ERA of 1.22, the best in the majors until Bob Gibson’s 1.12 mark of 1968.
Despite a professional playing career cut short by injury at age 27, Sayers remains one of the most revered athletes from Nebraska. At Omaha Central, he was a star in both football and track. He became the first player in FBS history to score a 99-yard touchdown run from scrimmage — against Nebraska in 1963. By the time he retired, Sayers had 9,435 combined yards — 4,956 rushing — and scored 336 points. At age 34, in 1977, he became the youngest player to be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. He also entered the College Football Hall of Fame the same year.
In 1968, Gibson led the domination by pitchers at a level unseen since the early 1900s. The St. Louis Cardinals right-hander went 22-9 with 13 shutouts and the lowest ERA (1.12) since 1914. "For that entire year," Gibson said, "I felt baseballwise that I could do whatever I wanted." Because of that, baseball lowered the mound from 15 inches to 10, the first major change in baseball's playing dimensions since the 1920s.
dirk.chatelain@owh.com, 402-649-1461,
Dirk Chatelain
Reporter - Sports
Dirk writes stories and columns about Husker football in addition to covering general assignments and enterprise for The World-Herald. Follow him on Twitter @dirkchatelain. Phone: 402-444-1062.
