“May integrity and honesty protect me, for my hope is in You, Lord." ~ Psalm 25:21
In a state where seats to Husker football
games have been sold out since 1962, images appeared on the giant video screens
in Memorial Stadium. Fans went deadly
silent in the seats below. Nearly 50,000
had gathered to watch their Huskers in a spring scrimmage, but mostly to
grieve.
On the screens, the shortened life of number 18, quarterback
Brook Berringer came to life. Scenes
echoed both pictures and emotions: throwing for a score in the 1995 Orange
Bowl, reading Dr. Seuss books to schoolchildren, hunting with his two Brittany
spaniels, watching eagerly from the sideline for his chance to play, visiting
sick kids in the hospital. Always focused,
smiling, laughing.
Then the video screens went dark. For a long time, fans stood in silence
remembering what could have been … and the character by which he lived.
Brook Berringer was the backup quarterback who helped
Nebraska win the 1994 national championship when starter, Tommie Frazier, one
of the most productive quarterbacks in college football history, was sidelined
with a leg injury. He quietly became a Husker
hero by winning the only seven games he started for the Cornhuskers that
season.
The following year, as the Huskers marched to a second national championship, Berringer again lost a tightly contested battle for the top offensive job. He threw only 51 passes in a mop-up role after Frazier had decimated opponents’ defenses.
As Nebraska rolled to consecutive national titles in ’94 and ‘95, much was written about several of the school's troubled athletes. Berringer was the antithesis of that. He could have easily been a starter on many elite teams and proved it-with enormous class; never complaining about his second-string role.
Unfortunately, Berringer never got a chance to fulfill those
dreams. He died when the plane he piloted
crashed into a field just miles from the Lincoln stadium just two days before the
biggest moment of his life. He was en route
to joining Coach Osborne and several teammates at a Fellowship of Christian
Athletes event later that day.
At a funeral attended by thousands, his mother's words brought
comfort, however small. "We were preparing
to watch Brook get drafted; but on that day, he was called by a higher Team. That’s the only way I can get through
this."
Berringer’s legacy, however, lives on. A
statue of him and Coach Osborne stands outside Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium. “Brook's spirit epitomizes the sacrifices
that so many small-town kids have made to make this program great,” said
Osborne. "Nobody that I ever coached had
better character than Brook Berringer."
