An ode to Nebraska’s longtime athletic trainer Jerry Weber as he enters retirement

Jerry Weber didn’t set a morning alarm last Monday.

For the first time in decades, Nebraska’s longtime head athletic trainer didn’t need to trek to his office at Memorial Stadium.

Instead, after 47 years at Nebraska, Weber began his new chapter: retirement.

“I’ve been anticipating this for a while now, so it’s not a huge, huge shock,” Weber said. “But yeah, it’s entirely different.”

For nearly five decades, Weber was synonymous with Nebraska Athletics.

He spent most of his career working with football, baseball and men’s gymnastics, but he worked with “probably every” sport Nebraska has had to offer at least once or twice. For example, upon his retirement, he received congratulatory notes from divers who competed for Nebraska in the 1980s.

It’s those relationships he’ll miss the most.

“You get to know the athletes really, really well,” Weber said. “You show control. We show some empathy. At one point, I was an older brother. And then I got into my 30s and I was an uncle. As I got older, OK, father figure and then grandfather. Who knows what I could be considered now, but the relationships are what it’s all about.

“You have athletes that are either hurt numerous times or have major surgeries. The parents come in, so you get to know the folks as well. Some of my best friends are some of those former athletes, parents that I still keep in touch with.”

Weber — who proudly proclaims he’s “73 and a half” years old — has seen it all in his career.

Any devastating, or not, injury sustained by a Nebraska football player from the late 1970s through the COVID year? Weber more than likely attended to them. The same goes for the 15 years he worked with baseball. And the 30 years he spent with men’s gymnastics.

“That’s where your expertise and the excellence comes from is because of the experience you have,” Weber said. “You hope that you can pass some of that along to the younger folks you’re working with because they’re going to need that in order to achieve the goals they want to in the care of their athletes. You think you’ve got things under control, you’re going through the gymnastics season, the baseball season, football season, whatever it is, and things are going fine, nobody’s hurt and then bang. Something always comes around. You can never get away from it. You’ve got to be ready for it.”

It’s not just the lengthy career that Weber boasts. It’s a decorated one, too.

He’s been on NCAA committees regarding competitive safeguards and the medical aspects of sports. He’s in the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame. He’s earned countless accolades from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, including the Sullivan Award and the Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award before being inducted into the NATA Hall of Fame in 2011.

Putting it mildly, Nebraska athletes have been in great hands.

Because of his prowess, Weber had ample opportunities to leave for other jobs over his career. But the Sidney native never wanted to go anywhere else.

“This, to me, was the pinnacle of my career,” Weber said. “I’m a Nebraska kid. Born in Sidney. Came here as a student in 1969. Worked with Paul Schneider and George Sullivan in the training room. Was fortunate to work with them as a student athletic trainer. Then went to PT school at Western Illinois. But I had been a student during Bob Devaney’s championships years and I just had the love and desire to stay here.”

While Weber was so entrenched with football for decades, he hasn’t worked with them for a few years — a result of the pandemic. Then, he stepped away from working with the baseball athletes on the daily in 2022.

Was it hard to step away from those sports? Of course. But, as far as baseball is concerned, he wanted to pass the baton to Tanner Fowler, who was then a graduate assistant under Weber.

“I always felt that he was the guy I wanted to replace me. He’s very knowledgeable. He’s a Nebraska guy, bleeds red,” Weber said of Fowler. “I wanted to be able to have some influence as to who was going to replace me on baseball, and so I thought that was the time to do it. Tanner’s awesome. He’s doing a great job and will continue to do a great job.”

Since handing the reins to Fowler, Weber ended his career working with the men’s and women’s golf teams and the rifle team.

But on his final day with Nebraska, he spent it in New Orleans — giving back to the NATA organization during its annual conference. So, he had cleaned out his office in North Stadium before his final week with the Huskers.

As Weber cleaned out his office, one best described as “lived-in,” Weber tried not to count the boxes filled to the brim with memorabilia. He estimates there were about a dozen.

So many Nebraska hats. Plenty of football helmets. A framed Eric Crouch jersey. Signed baseballs. A commemorative baseball jersey given to him in 2022 from the baseball team. Diplomas. Awards. Cards. Medical books. Countless papers. Cards. The list goes on.

“I’ve always believed that the sight of a clean desk is a sick mind,” Weber said with a laugh. “My desk is typically cluttered with things. People go, ‘How do you find stuff?’ Well, I know where it is. I just do.”

While he tossed plenty of things he didn’t need in this next venture, he did keep one special — and now ironic — superlative given to him by undergraduate athletic trainers in 2019.

“Most Likely to Never Retire.”

“They came up with that one because it looked like at that point, according to them, I was not going to ever retire,” Weber said.

In retirement, he’s not going to be one to “watch Netflix all day.”

He’s looking forward to dialing up his Nebraska super-fandom. He did get a head start on that, as he was in Baltimore for the Cade Povich vs. Spencer Schwellenbach game in June.

“That was just fabulous,” Weber said. “It was surreal. It’s just one of those things that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had to go, you know? I was like, ‘What does it take? I’ll get there.’”

He’s four states shy of having visited all 50 — needing just Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Montana.

But closer to home, he’s excited to attend his high school reunion this summer — something he’s never been able to do before now. This summer marks the 55th.

Whatever you choose to do in this next chapter, you deserve it.