The Nebraska Football team has honored Hall of Fame Coach Tom Osborne outside their new athletic complex. A statue of Osborne and quarterback Brook Berringer has been installed outside the Osborne Legacy Complex.
Fred Hoppe sculpted the statue, which was initially installed outside the Osborne Athletic Complex on the north side of Memorial Stadium in 2006. In a social media post from Tuesday, Hoppe explained how he convinced Osborne to agree to a sculpture.
Tom Osborne was approached about getting a sculpture. He’s just a modest man and said no to everyone, the regents and the coaches. So I met with him and showed him a picture of Brook Berringer with his (Osborne) hand on his (Berringer) arm. He paused for a minute, got kind of emotional, and said, ‘I will do that.’
The new Osborne Legacy Complex was a $165 million construction project to create a state-of-the-art 315,000-square-foot facility. Per the Nebraska Athletic Fund website,
The Osborne Legacy Complex is the new training home of Nebraska Football and includes the primary student-athlete dining center and academic center for all 22 sports. The 315,000 sq. ft. athletics performance facility is named in honor of legendary Coach Tom Osborne.
Osborne coached at Nebraska for 25 seasons, from 1973 to 1998, and finished with a record of 255-49-3. He won 13 conference titles and three national championships as a head coach.
Berringer is best remembered for relieving an injured Tommie Frazier in 1994 and leading Nebraska to seven straight wins on the way to a National Championship. He was tragically killed in a plane crash two days before the 1996 NFL Draft.
The school is scheduled to dedicate the facility next month. The initial social media post announcing the sculpture’s big move is below.
The Osborne Legacy Complex ™️#GBR x #WhatsNExt! pic.twitter.com/oEL25pVjRW
— Nebraska Football (@HuskerFootball) July 16, 2024
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