Remembering Brook
- Thread starter Eric the Red
- Start date
Eric the Red
Team HuskerBoard
Eric the Red
Team HuskerBoard
Husker QB's memory lives on quietly in hometown
GOODLAND, Kan. (AP) -- Jim McKee brings pictures. About a half-dozen photo album pages filled with pictures. It's just a sampling from six scrapbooks.
When you've never really shared your close Brook Berringer stories, photos are a good place to start.
McKee passes them around the kitchen table in Berringer's boyhood home.
There's one of Brook, standing before the front door, with a duffel bag strapped over his shoulder.
McKee and Jan Berringer, Brook's mother, look at the photo and smile as they point out the contents of the duffel bag. Jance McKee, then just a toddler, appears tucked away, his head poking out, a big grin on his face.
Now a sophomore at Brewster High School, about 30 miles east of Goodland, Jance is active in sports. Because he had just transferred, he couldn't play football last season. A shame, really, because Brewster, an eight-man team, loves to throw the football. And Jance, according to his dad, can toss the ball quite a ways and pretty accurately.
Brook taught him how to throw a football.
Jake McKee said he can count the number of times he's seen his father cry. The day that Brook died was one.
Jim hugged Jake and told him he'd lost a son.
As the McKees -- all eight of them -- mourned together, one eerie fact quickly surfaced. They discovered that each one of them had spoken with Brook earlier that day.
Even little Jance.
It's been nearly 10 years since the J-3 Piper Cub airplane that Brook piloted crashed northwest of Lincoln. Tobey Lake, the brother of Brook's girlfriend, Tiffini, also died. The date was April 18, 1996, only two days before Brook had expected to be chosen in the NFL Draft.
Nebraska mourned. The state had grown to love Brook, a Kansas boy, like an adopted son.
Play quarterback at Nebraska, come off the bench to lead the Huskers to a national championship, then go back to the bench as the Huskers win another title.
The fact Brook was a handsome, likable, honorable man who didn't seem to know a stranger added to his lore.
"What you saw with Brook is what you got. He didn't put on a face," said Brad Wells, a close friend and college roommate of Brook. "Just a great, great guy, with great integrity, great values. Just a true character."
The outpouring of support was tremendous. Jan Berringer received 10,000 pieces of mail, most of it from Nebraska fans. One letter was addressed, "Brook's Mom, Goodland, Kansas," and arrived with all the others. Thousands filled Max Jones Fieldhouse in Goodland for a funeral that lasted three hours and was broadcast locally on radio.
In the days, weeks and months that followed, everyone shared Brook stories. But not once in the past decade has Jim McKee spoken publicly about his father-son relationship with Brook, whose natural father, Warren, died of cancer when Brook was 7.
The soft-spoken McKee chooses his words carefully as he tries to explain his special relationship with Brook, whom he met through his daughter Jayme.
"It was just a real personal experience," McKee said. "I felt like what he and I had ... was not to be talked about again."
Said Jake McKee: "Their relationship will never fully be known by me. And I'm his own kid."
In fact, not even Brook's mother fully understood, McKee said, until he began sharing stories with Jan after Brook's funeral. Jan had known the McKees, who farmed near Goodland, because Brook dated Jayme in high school. But beyond that ...
"We were his getaway, and we just left it that way," Jim McKee said. "Nobody really knew about it."
Of course, the 15,000 acres of McKee land were like heaven for Brook, an avid outdoorsman.
Gathering cattle, roping steers, driving semis, running the combine, helping with wheat harvest -- Brook was part of it all on the McKee farm. He was a part of the family.
Football? A small part of the conversation, usually. But Jim McKee and Brook talked on the phone four or five times a week when Brook was in Lincoln, and those talks inevitably turned to football. When Brook learned he'd lost the starting quarterback job to Tommie Frazier before the 1995 season, he called Jim.
"There were a lot of issues with him and football," McKee said. "There were a lot of things he had a hard time dealing with."
McKee especially remembers one of Brook's last phone calls, about four days before the plane crash.
"It was basically a thank-you phone call," McKee said. "He said, 'I want you to know I love every one of you.'
"He had never, ever said anything like that before."
A medium-sized red Nebraska flag flies just above the ground of Brook's gravesite, in a cemetery on the north edge of Goodland.
The flag first appeared not long after Brook's funeral. When it eventually became torn and tattered, Jan decided to replace it. She purchased a new flag during her next Nebraska trip, but when she returned to the cemetery, the old flag had already been replaced.
Somebody has continued to replace it every year. To this day, Jan says she has no idea who. She turns to Jim McKee as she's retelling the story and asks him whether he knows. McKee shakes his head.
Jan has had strangers come to her home and stand in the front yard to take pictures of Brook's house.
"You can't live in Nebraska and not know who Brook Berringer is," said Jake McKee, who also played football at Nebraska and now lives in Omaha.
But how is Berringer remembered in his hometown?
All you will find is a poster commemorating Berringer that hangs in the trophy case at Max Jones Fieldhouse, the high school's gymnasium.
"We all remember Brook," said Richard Schwansinger, a longtime coach and teacher at Goodland High School. "I don't know that there was anybody in town who didn't know him. He was just that personable.
"The community ... they just grew up here. We knew all the kids. It's a tragic loss when we lose any student."
Said Jim McKee: "It's hard for the people here in Goodland to separate different losses like this out and hold them differently than others, because there are so many.
"As far as honoring one individual who passed away tragically at a young age ... well, there's so much of that here. It just blends in with everything else."
Don Smith was Brook's high school basketball coach.
When asked his thoughts on how Brook is remembered around Goodland today, Smith paused. "I don't know how callous this will be ... but I had a son who was killed in an accident, also. As those years go by, those memories definitely fade.
"There aren't many people who say anything to me about my son. As time goes on ... they just forget about it. The people that remember are those who had the personal involvement. That's the sad fact of it."
Jan Berringer still lives in Goodland, in the same house she and Warren built some 30 years ago. She's retired from teaching but still substitutes locally, when she's not traveling.
Her daughters, Drue and Nicoel, are married with families. Drue lives in Omaha, Nicoel in Fort Collins, Colo.
Brook's girlfriend, Tiffini Lake, eventually married. She lives in Vermont, where she's an anesthesiologist. Through a friend, she declined interview requests.
The McKees live in Goodland, only a few blocks from Jan Berringer.
Jim McKee doesn't believe Brook has received the respect he deserved from his hometown because of his accomplishments. It doesn't bother him though. He knows Brook was more than just a Nebraska football player.
He was a part of the family. Still is.
"For a lot of people, it's still a really big thing," McKee said, "and always will be."
GOODLAND, Kan. (AP) -- Jim McKee brings pictures. About a half-dozen photo album pages filled with pictures. It's just a sampling from six scrapbooks.
When you've never really shared your close Brook Berringer stories, photos are a good place to start.
McKee passes them around the kitchen table in Berringer's boyhood home.
There's one of Brook, standing before the front door, with a duffel bag strapped over his shoulder.
McKee and Jan Berringer, Brook's mother, look at the photo and smile as they point out the contents of the duffel bag. Jance McKee, then just a toddler, appears tucked away, his head poking out, a big grin on his face.
Now a sophomore at Brewster High School, about 30 miles east of Goodland, Jance is active in sports. Because he had just transferred, he couldn't play football last season. A shame, really, because Brewster, an eight-man team, loves to throw the football. And Jance, according to his dad, can toss the ball quite a ways and pretty accurately.
Brook taught him how to throw a football.
Jake McKee said he can count the number of times he's seen his father cry. The day that Brook died was one.
Jim hugged Jake and told him he'd lost a son.
As the McKees -- all eight of them -- mourned together, one eerie fact quickly surfaced. They discovered that each one of them had spoken with Brook earlier that day.
Even little Jance.
It's been nearly 10 years since the J-3 Piper Cub airplane that Brook piloted crashed northwest of Lincoln. Tobey Lake, the brother of Brook's girlfriend, Tiffini, also died. The date was April 18, 1996, only two days before Brook had expected to be chosen in the NFL Draft.
Nebraska mourned. The state had grown to love Brook, a Kansas boy, like an adopted son.
Play quarterback at Nebraska, come off the bench to lead the Huskers to a national championship, then go back to the bench as the Huskers win another title.
The fact Brook was a handsome, likable, honorable man who didn't seem to know a stranger added to his lore.
"What you saw with Brook is what you got. He didn't put on a face," said Brad Wells, a close friend and college roommate of Brook. "Just a great, great guy, with great integrity, great values. Just a true character."
The outpouring of support was tremendous. Jan Berringer received 10,000 pieces of mail, most of it from Nebraska fans. One letter was addressed, "Brook's Mom, Goodland, Kansas," and arrived with all the others. Thousands filled Max Jones Fieldhouse in Goodland for a funeral that lasted three hours and was broadcast locally on radio.
In the days, weeks and months that followed, everyone shared Brook stories. But not once in the past decade has Jim McKee spoken publicly about his father-son relationship with Brook, whose natural father, Warren, died of cancer when Brook was 7.
The soft-spoken McKee chooses his words carefully as he tries to explain his special relationship with Brook, whom he met through his daughter Jayme.
"It was just a real personal experience," McKee said. "I felt like what he and I had ... was not to be talked about again."
Said Jake McKee: "Their relationship will never fully be known by me. And I'm his own kid."
In fact, not even Brook's mother fully understood, McKee said, until he began sharing stories with Jan after Brook's funeral. Jan had known the McKees, who farmed near Goodland, because Brook dated Jayme in high school. But beyond that ...
"We were his getaway, and we just left it that way," Jim McKee said. "Nobody really knew about it."
Of course, the 15,000 acres of McKee land were like heaven for Brook, an avid outdoorsman.
Gathering cattle, roping steers, driving semis, running the combine, helping with wheat harvest -- Brook was part of it all on the McKee farm. He was a part of the family.
Football? A small part of the conversation, usually. But Jim McKee and Brook talked on the phone four or five times a week when Brook was in Lincoln, and those talks inevitably turned to football. When Brook learned he'd lost the starting quarterback job to Tommie Frazier before the 1995 season, he called Jim.
"There were a lot of issues with him and football," McKee said. "There were a lot of things he had a hard time dealing with."
McKee especially remembers one of Brook's last phone calls, about four days before the plane crash.
"It was basically a thank-you phone call," McKee said. "He said, 'I want you to know I love every one of you.'
"He had never, ever said anything like that before."
A medium-sized red Nebraska flag flies just above the ground of Brook's gravesite, in a cemetery on the north edge of Goodland.
The flag first appeared not long after Brook's funeral. When it eventually became torn and tattered, Jan decided to replace it. She purchased a new flag during her next Nebraska trip, but when she returned to the cemetery, the old flag had already been replaced.
Somebody has continued to replace it every year. To this day, Jan says she has no idea who. She turns to Jim McKee as she's retelling the story and asks him whether he knows. McKee shakes his head.
Jan has had strangers come to her home and stand in the front yard to take pictures of Brook's house.
"You can't live in Nebraska and not know who Brook Berringer is," said Jake McKee, who also played football at Nebraska and now lives in Omaha.
But how is Berringer remembered in his hometown?
All you will find is a poster commemorating Berringer that hangs in the trophy case at Max Jones Fieldhouse, the high school's gymnasium.
"We all remember Brook," said Richard Schwansinger, a longtime coach and teacher at Goodland High School. "I don't know that there was anybody in town who didn't know him. He was just that personable.
"The community ... they just grew up here. We knew all the kids. It's a tragic loss when we lose any student."
Said Jim McKee: "It's hard for the people here in Goodland to separate different losses like this out and hold them differently than others, because there are so many.
"As far as honoring one individual who passed away tragically at a young age ... well, there's so much of that here. It just blends in with everything else."
Don Smith was Brook's high school basketball coach.
When asked his thoughts on how Brook is remembered around Goodland today, Smith paused. "I don't know how callous this will be ... but I had a son who was killed in an accident, also. As those years go by, those memories definitely fade.
"There aren't many people who say anything to me about my son. As time goes on ... they just forget about it. The people that remember are those who had the personal involvement. That's the sad fact of it."
Jan Berringer still lives in Goodland, in the same house she and Warren built some 30 years ago. She's retired from teaching but still substitutes locally, when she's not traveling.
Her daughters, Drue and Nicoel, are married with families. Drue lives in Omaha, Nicoel in Fort Collins, Colo.
Brook's girlfriend, Tiffini Lake, eventually married. She lives in Vermont, where she's an anesthesiologist. Through a friend, she declined interview requests.
The McKees live in Goodland, only a few blocks from Jan Berringer.
Jim McKee doesn't believe Brook has received the respect he deserved from his hometown because of his accomplishments. It doesn't bother him though. He knows Brook was more than just a Nebraska football player.
He was a part of the family. Still is.
"For a lot of people, it's still a really big thing," McKee said, "and always will be."
hskrfannnwk
Special Teams Player
While I was sitting here at work today... I heard a song apparently written by some local person come on the radio that was all about Brook. It was a great song! Started off with some highlights of a Nebraska game with Brook in as quarterback.. then went on to say that he grew up in Goodland, KS and he turned 18 and is now college bound and how Lincoln is where he wants to go. Talked about him looking up to Coach Osborne and how he will give him is all for a chance to play football for the Huskers....
anyway, just thought I would share that, I have never heard the song, n ot sure who sings it, if it is just a local song being played here since I live about 30 miles from Goodland....
anyway, just thought I would share that, I have never heard the song, n ot sure who sings it, if it is just a local song being played here since I live about 30 miles from Goodland....
sdhsker
Walk-on
The song I think you are thinking about is "The Nebraska Song" on "Six Days on the Road" by Sawyer Brown. I believe Brook & Mark Miller were good friends. Here is an article that I found.
http://www.kokosuniverse.com/husker_press.htm
http://www.kokosuniverse.com/husker_press.htm
Eric the Red
Team HuskerBoard
Remembering Brook: A Tear-stained Sweater
By JACK L. ALLEN
May 08, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I were to look in my Dictionary of Life for the definition of “role model” I have no doubt it would be: A Nebraska quarterback from Goodland, Kansas, named Brook Berringer.
This should have been published several weeks ago on the tenth anniversary of Brook’s death. But for ten years I have had a difficult time just talking about him, and it has been really hard to write about him, requiring frequent breaks of days at a time.
For readers who might not know, Brook was a native of Nebraska who grew up in Goodland, Kansas. He warmed the bench during Nebraska’s 1992 and ‘93 seasons and seemed destined to do so again in ‘94. But starting quarterback Tommie Frazier developed blood clots in a leg and Brook came off the bench in the fifth game of the season, led Nebraska to eight wins, an undefeated season and a bid to play Miami in the Orange Bowl. Early in his relief role, Brook played despite a collapsed lung.
Many fans fondly recall his poise in the Huskers’ 24-7 win in Lincoln over Colorado; anyone who witnessed his performance that day will long remember it.
Brook returned to the bench for the ‘95 season and the way he handled that disappointment endeared him to fans, showing people who did not know him what a special young man he was.
On and off the field, it seemed like the following inscription on a corner of Memorial Stadium was about Brook: “Courage. Generosity. Fairness. Honor. In these are the true awards of manly sports.” This is a story of how he touched some lives:
*****
My mother Ruth was proud to be called a Husker “fanatic” and for years seldom missed a game at home or away. But she kept things in perspective. It was just a game played by boys and young men, and in the 33 years she followed Nebraska only two players reached special status – where she’d want to meet them and maybe even get an autograph. The two were Richie Glover, an All-America middle guard in the early 70s, and Brook Berringer.
Mid-way through the ‘94 season, Ruth’s health declined. She seriously thought about skipping the remaining games. But there was something special about Brook and she wanted to be in Memorial Stadium to cheer for him. Despite the difficulty and pain, she was in Lincoln for every game.
She was upset when Coach Tom Osborne started Frazier in the Orange Bowl against Miami – Brook, after all, took the Huskers to the dance and deserved to start. In her remaining days she never retreated from her belief that Brook’s second-quarter touchdown pass was the winning margin in Nebraska’s 24-17 win, and Osborne’s first national championship.
On a Friday morning in July 1995, as I was driving Ruth to a hospital for surgery, she made a list of things we “had to do” once she felt better. At the top was a shopping trip to buy red number 18 Husker jerseys to wear to football games that fall. She believed with all her heart that Brook’s ’94 performance would earn him the starting job in ’95. He needed to see a lot of number 18 jerseys in the stands, she thought.
Shortly after surgery, she had a mild heart attack. The next day she had a more serious heart attack. On Sunday evening she had a major heart attack. Although she surprised her doctors by surviving the night, Monday morning found Ruth discouraged; it seemed she was giving up. I was desperate to find a way to cheer her up.
Late that morning I remembered that Brook was on her mind when she went into surgery.
I knew of Brook’s reputation for making countless visits to hospitals and thought a visit might cheer Ruth. Brook was working that summer as an athletic department ambassador, meeting with donors, and just happened to be in Omaha having lunch with a good friend of mine. I called and asked if he would visit Ruth. He wasn’t sure; he had a full schedule, but would try to swing by the hospital in the evening on his way back to Lincoln. He made no promise and because it was so iffy I didn’t mention the possibility to other family members.
Forty-seven minutes after I hung up, Brook walked into my mother’s room in the CCU at Bergan Mercy Hospital. She was so excited she tried to get out of bed to hug him. He sat on the edge of her bed, held her hand and for 15 minutes talked quietly to her about his father, Warren, who died of cancer when Brook was a boy.
She smiled and her eyes twinkled all afternoon as nurses teased her about her tall, dark and handsome visitor. By evening she was strong enough that doctors were able to disconnect some of the equipment that had been keeping her alive. She couldn’t talk because of tubes down her throat but wrote me a note: “remmber 18 jersys”. We both smiled.
Sadly, a few days later, no one, neither Brook nor her doctors, could save her life when the wall of her heart ruptured. Weeks later, in my grief, there was no way I could go to Nebraska games alone; Ruth and I had shared season tickets and a love of the Huskers for decades. Then, a week before the first game I happened to find her “remmber 18 jersys” among the loose change on my dresser top. I had to be there, for Brook, and in a number 18 jersey.
Not a single store in Omaha or Lincoln had a number 18 jersey in my size. Instead, I took Ruth’s note to all the games; I felt she was with me, cheering Brook the few times he got to play.
*****
Late the afternoon of Thursday, April 18, 1996, I was driving from Bellevue to mid-town Omaha for dinner at a friend’s home. I was on 13th Street, just approaching Sokol Hall, when KFAB aired a bulletin. A small plane had crashed west of Lincoln. There was an unconfirmed report that Brook might have been aboard the aircraft. I lost control of my car, hit the curb and stopped on the sidewalk.
I was westbound on Dodge Street when KFAB reported that Coach Osborne was taking Brook’s dental records to the crash scene. My eyes were so blinded by tears I barely made the turn onto Happy Hollow Boulevard, and had to pull to the curb a few blocks later when KFAB quoted a sheriff confirming Brook’s death.
We had little appetite and knew our sorrow was shared by thousands of Nebraskans.
It was clear that the upcoming Saturday’s Red-White game in Lincoln would be a tribute to Brook. I spent Friday morning searching for a red number 18 jersey. Every store was either sold out or had removed the jerseys “out of respect” for Brook, a move I couldn’t understand. I sketched out some art I wanted to apply to a sweater; at the last store I visited, the owner found the perfect red sweater, featuring the Nebraska “N” on the left side of the chest. He let me have it for half the price – “It’s for Brook, after all,” he said, tears forming in his eyes. He had met Brook several times.
I took the sweater to C & C Tailoring in Bellevue, and asked owner Verl Chase if he could embroider “Brook Berringer NU 18 Remembered” on the front in time for me to wear it to the next day’s spring game. The place was always busy on a Friday, but he would try.
At home I received a call from family friend, Joe Dennis, an Omaha area real estate developer. He was a good friend of Brook’s and the two often hunted together. He was to sit next to Brook at a donors’ dinner in Lincoln that evening.
Joe said he’d been thinking about Brook and recalled that July day when I called them and asked Brook to visit my Mother. He knew the visit had pleased her. He was choked up and I knew he was about to lose it. He said he just needed to talk to someone about Brook. Joe didn’t have a son and it was obvious he loved Brook like a son. He said he’d talked to Brook earlier in the week, and that Brook had been assured he’d be taken in the upcoming NFL draft. When I told him about the sweater, Joe started crying and said he had to hang up.
It wasn’t until his tailor shop closed that evening that Verl Chase found time to work on my sweater. It took several hours. Late that night it was done. He did not charge me for labor, just the cost of the thread. He remembered the night he and his daughter met Brook after Nebraska football players had played a Bellevue high school faculty in a fundraiser. Brook seemed special, he said, and making my sweater special was a small way of saying, “Thanks, Brook.”
*****
It was a sell-out crowd at the Devaney Center the next day for the Husker Beef Club’s pre-game barbecue lunch; a somber group of normally boisterous fans.
There were a lot of red number 18 jerseys but I apparently wore the only garment noting Brook’s death. Many fans approached me, surprised a memorial sweater was already being marketed and wondering where I bought it. When I told them I’d designed it and had a tailor do the work, a lot of them embraced me, their tears falling on the sweater. A few simply touched the black 18 on my chest and turned away.
The next tears to touch the sweater were mine, when Coach Osborne, barely able to maintain his composure, stood at the podium and spoke of his loss, our loss. It was obvious he had loved the young man who had touched so many of our lives. “The Brook I knew, there was nothing he could have done better. The length of his life was not what you would have liked. But the quality couldn’t have been better,” the coach said. He talked of Brook becoming a devout Christian.
My hosts and I were at the Red-White Game long enough to watch a tribute to Brook on the HuskerVision screens. Then we left; the memories of Brook playing on that field with a collapsed lung – because his team needed him – were too much. More tears on the sweater.
*****
I’ve worn the sweater at least a game or two every season since Brook’s death. The first season a lot of fans in and around the stadium stopped me and asked about the sweater. Some sobbed just talking about him and if they hugged me a tear or two fell on the sweater.
As the years passed, however, people seemed to forget Brook. Much of the media and, at times, even the Nebraska athletic department, started referring to Tommie Frazier, who never got along with Brook, by the way, as the Nebraska quarterback who led the Huskers to back-to-back national championships. If even Nebraska’s sports information office stopped crediting Brook for leading Nebraska to the ’94 title, it’s no wonder his memory faded among many, many fans.
I’ve resented the over-hyping of Frazier’s contributions and the downplaying, intentional or not, of Brook’s valuable work in ’94. So an incident at Kansas University after the 2003 Nebraska-Kansas game was a welcome – and very moving – surprise.
Before going to the car, I went to a restroom on the upper deck concourse. Walking down the near-deserted concourse toward an exit ramp, I stopped at a concession stand in hopes there might be a cola or cup of coffee left. When the lady saw my sweater she exclaimed, “Oh, my God!” and came from behind the counter for a closer look. She gently, almost reverently, stroked the embroidery with a finger.
She called out to several ladies in another concession stand, “Come and see his sweater!” None of the ladies had ever met Brook. But they knew all about him, the western Kansas kid who’d made good up at Nebraska. Two of them remembered listening to the Kansas-Nebraska game in ’94. One, the lady who first saw my sweater, even recalled that Brook completed 13 of 18 passes in that 45-17 Husker rout of the Jayhawks.
The Kansas lady who could remember a Nebraska quarterback’s passing statistics from a game played seven years before insisted on hugging me before I left to drive home. A tear fell from her cheek and hit the embroidered “r” in Brook. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
I told her it was OK, the sweater was tear-stained. And every tear prompts warm memories of my mother and a very special kid from Goodland, Kansas. A football player so many of us will always remember for his qualities as a man more than his abilities as a quarterback.
*****
Brook was just months from his 23rd birthday that sunny day in April of 1996 when he and his fiancé’s brother took to the air. Guys that age don’t think about their mortality. Brook probably never realized how many lives he touched and influenced in those few years. What a shame.
By JACK L. ALLEN
May 08, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I were to look in my Dictionary of Life for the definition of “role model” I have no doubt it would be: A Nebraska quarterback from Goodland, Kansas, named Brook Berringer.
This should have been published several weeks ago on the tenth anniversary of Brook’s death. But for ten years I have had a difficult time just talking about him, and it has been really hard to write about him, requiring frequent breaks of days at a time.
For readers who might not know, Brook was a native of Nebraska who grew up in Goodland, Kansas. He warmed the bench during Nebraska’s 1992 and ‘93 seasons and seemed destined to do so again in ‘94. But starting quarterback Tommie Frazier developed blood clots in a leg and Brook came off the bench in the fifth game of the season, led Nebraska to eight wins, an undefeated season and a bid to play Miami in the Orange Bowl. Early in his relief role, Brook played despite a collapsed lung.
Many fans fondly recall his poise in the Huskers’ 24-7 win in Lincoln over Colorado; anyone who witnessed his performance that day will long remember it.
Brook returned to the bench for the ‘95 season and the way he handled that disappointment endeared him to fans, showing people who did not know him what a special young man he was.
On and off the field, it seemed like the following inscription on a corner of Memorial Stadium was about Brook: “Courage. Generosity. Fairness. Honor. In these are the true awards of manly sports.” This is a story of how he touched some lives:
*****
My mother Ruth was proud to be called a Husker “fanatic” and for years seldom missed a game at home or away. But she kept things in perspective. It was just a game played by boys and young men, and in the 33 years she followed Nebraska only two players reached special status – where she’d want to meet them and maybe even get an autograph. The two were Richie Glover, an All-America middle guard in the early 70s, and Brook Berringer.
Mid-way through the ‘94 season, Ruth’s health declined. She seriously thought about skipping the remaining games. But there was something special about Brook and she wanted to be in Memorial Stadium to cheer for him. Despite the difficulty and pain, she was in Lincoln for every game.
She was upset when Coach Tom Osborne started Frazier in the Orange Bowl against Miami – Brook, after all, took the Huskers to the dance and deserved to start. In her remaining days she never retreated from her belief that Brook’s second-quarter touchdown pass was the winning margin in Nebraska’s 24-17 win, and Osborne’s first national championship.
On a Friday morning in July 1995, as I was driving Ruth to a hospital for surgery, she made a list of things we “had to do” once she felt better. At the top was a shopping trip to buy red number 18 Husker jerseys to wear to football games that fall. She believed with all her heart that Brook’s ’94 performance would earn him the starting job in ’95. He needed to see a lot of number 18 jerseys in the stands, she thought.
Shortly after surgery, she had a mild heart attack. The next day she had a more serious heart attack. On Sunday evening she had a major heart attack. Although she surprised her doctors by surviving the night, Monday morning found Ruth discouraged; it seemed she was giving up. I was desperate to find a way to cheer her up.
Late that morning I remembered that Brook was on her mind when she went into surgery.
I knew of Brook’s reputation for making countless visits to hospitals and thought a visit might cheer Ruth. Brook was working that summer as an athletic department ambassador, meeting with donors, and just happened to be in Omaha having lunch with a good friend of mine. I called and asked if he would visit Ruth. He wasn’t sure; he had a full schedule, but would try to swing by the hospital in the evening on his way back to Lincoln. He made no promise and because it was so iffy I didn’t mention the possibility to other family members.
Forty-seven minutes after I hung up, Brook walked into my mother’s room in the CCU at Bergan Mercy Hospital. She was so excited she tried to get out of bed to hug him. He sat on the edge of her bed, held her hand and for 15 minutes talked quietly to her about his father, Warren, who died of cancer when Brook was a boy.
She smiled and her eyes twinkled all afternoon as nurses teased her about her tall, dark and handsome visitor. By evening she was strong enough that doctors were able to disconnect some of the equipment that had been keeping her alive. She couldn’t talk because of tubes down her throat but wrote me a note: “remmber 18 jersys”. We both smiled.
Sadly, a few days later, no one, neither Brook nor her doctors, could save her life when the wall of her heart ruptured. Weeks later, in my grief, there was no way I could go to Nebraska games alone; Ruth and I had shared season tickets and a love of the Huskers for decades. Then, a week before the first game I happened to find her “remmber 18 jersys” among the loose change on my dresser top. I had to be there, for Brook, and in a number 18 jersey.
Not a single store in Omaha or Lincoln had a number 18 jersey in my size. Instead, I took Ruth’s note to all the games; I felt she was with me, cheering Brook the few times he got to play.
*****
Late the afternoon of Thursday, April 18, 1996, I was driving from Bellevue to mid-town Omaha for dinner at a friend’s home. I was on 13th Street, just approaching Sokol Hall, when KFAB aired a bulletin. A small plane had crashed west of Lincoln. There was an unconfirmed report that Brook might have been aboard the aircraft. I lost control of my car, hit the curb and stopped on the sidewalk.
I was westbound on Dodge Street when KFAB reported that Coach Osborne was taking Brook’s dental records to the crash scene. My eyes were so blinded by tears I barely made the turn onto Happy Hollow Boulevard, and had to pull to the curb a few blocks later when KFAB quoted a sheriff confirming Brook’s death.
We had little appetite and knew our sorrow was shared by thousands of Nebraskans.
It was clear that the upcoming Saturday’s Red-White game in Lincoln would be a tribute to Brook. I spent Friday morning searching for a red number 18 jersey. Every store was either sold out or had removed the jerseys “out of respect” for Brook, a move I couldn’t understand. I sketched out some art I wanted to apply to a sweater; at the last store I visited, the owner found the perfect red sweater, featuring the Nebraska “N” on the left side of the chest. He let me have it for half the price – “It’s for Brook, after all,” he said, tears forming in his eyes. He had met Brook several times.
I took the sweater to C & C Tailoring in Bellevue, and asked owner Verl Chase if he could embroider “Brook Berringer NU 18 Remembered” on the front in time for me to wear it to the next day’s spring game. The place was always busy on a Friday, but he would try.
At home I received a call from family friend, Joe Dennis, an Omaha area real estate developer. He was a good friend of Brook’s and the two often hunted together. He was to sit next to Brook at a donors’ dinner in Lincoln that evening.
Joe said he’d been thinking about Brook and recalled that July day when I called them and asked Brook to visit my Mother. He knew the visit had pleased her. He was choked up and I knew he was about to lose it. He said he just needed to talk to someone about Brook. Joe didn’t have a son and it was obvious he loved Brook like a son. He said he’d talked to Brook earlier in the week, and that Brook had been assured he’d be taken in the upcoming NFL draft. When I told him about the sweater, Joe started crying and said he had to hang up.
It wasn’t until his tailor shop closed that evening that Verl Chase found time to work on my sweater. It took several hours. Late that night it was done. He did not charge me for labor, just the cost of the thread. He remembered the night he and his daughter met Brook after Nebraska football players had played a Bellevue high school faculty in a fundraiser. Brook seemed special, he said, and making my sweater special was a small way of saying, “Thanks, Brook.”
*****
It was a sell-out crowd at the Devaney Center the next day for the Husker Beef Club’s pre-game barbecue lunch; a somber group of normally boisterous fans.
There were a lot of red number 18 jerseys but I apparently wore the only garment noting Brook’s death. Many fans approached me, surprised a memorial sweater was already being marketed and wondering where I bought it. When I told them I’d designed it and had a tailor do the work, a lot of them embraced me, their tears falling on the sweater. A few simply touched the black 18 on my chest and turned away.
The next tears to touch the sweater were mine, when Coach Osborne, barely able to maintain his composure, stood at the podium and spoke of his loss, our loss. It was obvious he had loved the young man who had touched so many of our lives. “The Brook I knew, there was nothing he could have done better. The length of his life was not what you would have liked. But the quality couldn’t have been better,” the coach said. He talked of Brook becoming a devout Christian.
My hosts and I were at the Red-White Game long enough to watch a tribute to Brook on the HuskerVision screens. Then we left; the memories of Brook playing on that field with a collapsed lung – because his team needed him – were too much. More tears on the sweater.
*****
I’ve worn the sweater at least a game or two every season since Brook’s death. The first season a lot of fans in and around the stadium stopped me and asked about the sweater. Some sobbed just talking about him and if they hugged me a tear or two fell on the sweater.
As the years passed, however, people seemed to forget Brook. Much of the media and, at times, even the Nebraska athletic department, started referring to Tommie Frazier, who never got along with Brook, by the way, as the Nebraska quarterback who led the Huskers to back-to-back national championships. If even Nebraska’s sports information office stopped crediting Brook for leading Nebraska to the ’94 title, it’s no wonder his memory faded among many, many fans.
I’ve resented the over-hyping of Frazier’s contributions and the downplaying, intentional or not, of Brook’s valuable work in ’94. So an incident at Kansas University after the 2003 Nebraska-Kansas game was a welcome – and very moving – surprise.
Before going to the car, I went to a restroom on the upper deck concourse. Walking down the near-deserted concourse toward an exit ramp, I stopped at a concession stand in hopes there might be a cola or cup of coffee left. When the lady saw my sweater she exclaimed, “Oh, my God!” and came from behind the counter for a closer look. She gently, almost reverently, stroked the embroidery with a finger.
She called out to several ladies in another concession stand, “Come and see his sweater!” None of the ladies had ever met Brook. But they knew all about him, the western Kansas kid who’d made good up at Nebraska. Two of them remembered listening to the Kansas-Nebraska game in ’94. One, the lady who first saw my sweater, even recalled that Brook completed 13 of 18 passes in that 45-17 Husker rout of the Jayhawks.
The Kansas lady who could remember a Nebraska quarterback’s passing statistics from a game played seven years before insisted on hugging me before I left to drive home. A tear fell from her cheek and hit the embroidered “r” in Brook. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
I told her it was OK, the sweater was tear-stained. And every tear prompts warm memories of my mother and a very special kid from Goodland, Kansas. A football player so many of us will always remember for his qualities as a man more than his abilities as a quarterback.
*****
Brook was just months from his 23rd birthday that sunny day in April of 1996 when he and his fiancé’s brother took to the air. Guys that age don’t think about their mortality. Brook probably never realized how many lives he touched and influenced in those few years. What a shame.