Skip to main content

A Funny Little Story about Brook's Legacy


In 2nd grade, so about 2002, I got in a fight in the middle of art class with a kid who said he didn't care Berringer had died. Now I was only a year & a half old when he died. I had no memory of actually seeing him play, but I grew up hearing stories about him. I heard about his selflessness, his humility, his strong faith & his eagerness to give back to the community. For this little punk (and lets be honest, he was just being your typical smart-ass 8 year old) to say he didn't care was unfathomable.

Everyone I knew loved Brook!

It had never even registered in my mind that someone could feel any other way. We even had this poster hanging in our basement. Look how awesome he is!

So I got up and used my safety scissors to cut his art project to ribbons. My enraged teacher, Ms. Brown (a very appropriate name for an art teacher, by the way) told me to go pull a ticket, a method of punishment in which you start the day on green, but pull tickets from yellow, orange and then red, each one representing an higher level of punishment. So I went and pulled that fresh green ticket and then promptly ripped it in half.

The next day everyone's tickets were laminated & remained so for the rest of my time in elementary school.

What strikes me most about that story isn't my willingness to defend Brook's honor. Most of that was just dumb, 8 year old pride. It's that I became so enraged over someone's indifference toward a guy I had never met, never seen play and never even heard of outside of the stories people told about him. Disregarding the fact that I wasn't really living up to Brook's example very well in that moment, that's the power those stories had over me.

When I tell people that a huge part of why I love Nebraska football so much is because of the community it fosters, they just kind of shrug it off as if saying "yeah, that sounds nice and fluffy, but lets be honest we all just want to win."

While that mindset of only wanting to win is certainly true for some people, stories like Brook's prove that most of us care about something a little deeper than that. We almost all crave the communal aspect of sports, even if we don't consciously realize it. Nebraska fans just tend to wear that part of it on their sleeves more than some.

The anniversary of his death is still mourned by Husker fans 23 years later and Brook Berringer may be the only back-up quarterback in all of college or pro football to have a statue outside the stadium.


While part of his popularity is certainly due to his work while Tommie Frazier battled blood clots, much of his legacy is due to what he gave back. And it's for that reason that out of the tens of thousands of Huskers who have played here over 129 years of football, only he has a statue outside Memorial Stadium.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BREAKTHROUGH: After Decades of 'N is for Knowledge,' World's Scientists Announce Creation of 2nd Nebraska Joke

After over four decades of milking the exact same joke about Nebraska football, the world's top scientists in every major field of research have come together to announce the creation of a 2nd joke. The original joke simply proclaims the 'N' on the side of Nebraska's football helmet stands for 'Knowledge.' They announced this breakthrough was the culmination of 10 years of collaborative research and over $250 billion spent. "Normally we'd spend that kind of time and resources on medical advances, technological breakthroughs, more efficient methods of engineering and manufacturing, but this joke had just gotten so stale. We eventually came to the conclusion that the best possible service we could do for society was to help them out of this rut," world-renowned quantum theorist Alain Aspect said. "I mean, come on! The joke doesn't even make sense. By the very structure of the joke, the joke teller is the one insisting the N stands for knowle...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lil' Red in Concussion Protocol after Jumping on Head

Lincoln, NE - The Nebraska football team will be without it's beloved inflatable toddler as it opens fall camp next week. The (Faux)maha World-Herald has confirmed Lil' Red has entered concussion protocol after multiple incidents of bouncing on his own head with absolutely no protection or safety equipment. It's been a rough offseason for Lil' Red, who has just finished recovering from multiple stab wounds received from a sect of deranged fans who believe that "sacrificing" the mascot would "break the curse" on Nebraska football. Lil' Red is entering his 20th season of eligibility for the Huskers and was expected to contribute as the 2nd man in the mascot tandem-bike routine.  "It'll just be the next man up," Frost told reporters on Wednesday. Corn Cob Man is expected to go into fall camp as the starter. He hasn't seen game action for a few decades, but he's been "hungry" for his shot, he told reporters. "Sorr...
Post a Comment
Read more

To Break Nebraska Football Curse, Frank Solich to Sacrifice 'Lil Red at Halftime of Fordham Game

Lincoln, NE - After finding yet another Rock Bottom last week at Illinois, Nebraska football finds itself growing increasingly desperate to break the almost 2 decade curse that has befallen the program. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln announced this week that former Nebraska head coach Frank Solich would be returning to Memorial Stadium to perform a blood sacrifice of 'Lil Red while dressed as the original fan favorite "Blonde Herbie" during halftime of the Fordham game.  "We thank 'Lil Red and the unfortunate student scheduled to play him this Saturday for their long service to this university," said new UNL Athletic Director Trev Alberts in a statement released on Friday. "But these are desperate times and 'Lil Red was always kind of stupid anyway." The source of the curse remains unknown, but its existence has long centered around 3 popular fan theories: 1. The introduction of 'Lil Red as a mascot 2. The retirement of "Blonde Her...
Post a Comment
Read more