Why Husker love for Nebraska interim AD Dennis Leblanc spans decades

The man wearing a red jacket and black athletic pants poked his head inside the press box at Haymarket Park. Just checking in on a Friday night.

He had done this many times before. But never as Nebraska’s interim athletic director.

“Dennis!” one staffer exclaimed with a wave. Others greeted him with a grin and a handshake. These weren’t introductions — rather, friends catching up after one received unexpected news.

Dennis Leblanc kept a quiet smile as NU staffers continued their in-game duties. He began the week in the same general role he’s held since 1987 helping guide Husker student-athletes in their academic careers while their more prominent sports careers played out in Lincoln. He ends it as the liminal face of the Athletic Department, the bridge between Trev Alberts and whoever eventually becomes the seventh AD at the school this century.

“I was surprised Trev left,” Leblanc said. “I’m just as surprised they reached out to me for the position.”

No one is more popular or established around Memorial Stadium than the native of Clifton, Kansas, who has been with the Huskers since he arrived to work for free as an assistant track coach in 1983. He figures he received more than 200 texts from former student-athletes in the first day since his appointment Thursday afternoon.

The Nebraska baseball team invited Leblanc on Friday to join in their team picture — something they take this season after each victory — and dedicated the 7-6 win over Nicholls to him. It was the least they could do for the person broadly known as a steadfast supporter and safety net for the academically inspired and uninspired alike.

“Every Husker you have ever cheered for — in any sport — respects this man,” Blake Lawrence, a former NU linebacker and co-founder of the NIL company Opendorse, posted on social media. “And he knows them personally. And helped them graduate. And helped them grow. Dennis is an incredible fit for the interim athletic director role.”

Recruits for decades have named Leblanc specifically as a reason they chose Nebraska. Former Husker football coach Tom Osborne — who interviewed Leblanc for the academics position 37 years ago — still credits him for the signing of countless gridiron stars whose parents first were sold on the notion that their sons’ college experience should bear more fruit than just a letter on their jackets and perhaps some time in the NFL.

“He’s a very steady guy, very intelligent,” Osborne told the Omaha World-Herald this week. “He’s done a tremendous job of working with student-athletes. Some guys who are Phi Beta Kappa (honors) people and also guys that were struggling to get through English 101. There’s no question he wants to do what he can to make the athletic program go as well as it can. He’s a guy that can do that.”

Thousands of NU student-athletes have earned degrees under Leblanc’s watch and almost all have a story to tell about him. A total of 278 Academic All-Americans have emerged during his tenure, including 65 in football, his longtime primary sport.

Leblanc, like a coach, would push players to places they didn’t know they could go. When Norfolk native and defensive lineman Kevin Ramaekers didn’t qualify out of high school, Leblanc got permission from the Big Eight to move the teen into the basement of his house to prepare to retake the ACT. Ramaekers became a multiyear starter and was a first-team league choice as a senior in 1993 before embarking on a successful business career.

Former lineman Le Kevin Smith said in 2004 that Leblanc cared more about his academic career than he did.

“Your freshman and sophomore years you look at him as the guy who’s always on your tail, the bad guy,” Smith said. “But by the end of your sophomore year or junior year, you realize Dennis is here to help you and get you your degree.”

Linebacker Steve Octavien in 2007 said Leblanc was the reason he graduated. Octavien suffered a broken leg in the 2005 opener and the academic adviser told him with some humor that there was nothing the Florida native could do about it except study.

Running back Rex Burkhead was a first-team Academic All-American in 2011 and 2012 and credited Leblanc and his staff for keeping him on track. D-line twins Carlos and Khalil Davis were on the verge of not playing because of grades at one point in their careers — Leblanc kept their mother, Tracy, in the loop from then on and they graduated in 2019.

Perhaps most famous are the tales of Leblanc’s dogged pursuit of the ones who got away. He makes a habit of texting or calling athletes who left without a degree once or twice a month offering reminders and encouragement to finish what they started when they are ready. He helped Jason Wiltz graduate in 2016 after the former Husker D-tackle finished his senior year in Lincoln in 1998 and followed with a pro career.

Eugene Chealey, a cornerback from Orlando, left school 13 credit hours shy in 1987 and came back in 2003. Leblanc convinced him he could get his diploma in criminal justice while balancing a full-time job and three children. Chealey nearly quit early in his return, going to Leblanc’s office to deliver the bad news.

“He closed the door behind me and said, ‘Hey, we can do this, whether it be one year, two years, five years,’” Chealey said then. “Had I walked out of that office, I probably never would have looked back.”

Former Nebraska offensive lineman Jermarcus “Yoshi” Hardrick still considers Leblanc a father figure. Hardrick was a junior college transfer with no bigger ambitions than playing pro ball when he came to Lincoln in 2010. Nobody in his family had a college degree — Hardrick still remembers how Leblanc’s eyes lit up when that came up during his recruiting visit.

The care factor, Hardrick said this week, is the best he’s seen from anyone in his 33-year-old life. Leblanc gives direction. Options. Love. Eight years after Hardrick left Lincoln to embark on a pro career, he returned as a full-time student for a semester in the spring of 2019 to secure a diploma in sociology.

“The tears he had were real tears on graduation day, and I had them, too,” Hardrick said. “I’ll never forget that moment.”

Hardick’s former juco and Husker teammate, linebacker Lavonte David, graduated in 2021 to fulfill a promise he made to Leblanc and his mother. So many others also grew to appreciate him, then love him, years later.

“Sometimes you’re not doing the right thing and you try to sneak by his office like, ‘I hope he doesn’t see me,’” Hardrick said. “But you can’t hide from him. He keeps you on your toes and he’s such a good guy. I don’t think I’ve ever been mad at Dennis. His energy is always great. He was the same guy every day and is the same guy still.”

Those who know Leblanc buzz at the idea of the lifelong servant leader sitting in the power chair within Nebraska athletics. Leblanc has worked under seven permanent Husker ADs — “He’s seen a parade of them,” Osborne said, chuckling — starting with Bob Devaney.

Osborne, himself the interim AD when Nebraska fired Steve Pederson in 2007, said Leblanc knows what he’s doing after four decades within the department. No advice needed.

“I think his comfort level will be pretty good,” Osborne said. “And I think he’ll be very effective. I’m glad he’s in the position that he’s in because I think most coaches and athletes will have some degree of comfort — at this particular point — having Dennis where he is.”

In a way, Hardrick said, Leblanc has been doing the job the whole time. Ask student-athletes behind the scenes who felt like their constant through the years.

It’s the guy who has never given up on any of them.

“If I didn’t know what an athletic director was, I would have thought that he was the athletic director back then,” Hardrick said. “Every sport comes through that man. So I think it’s a great opportunity for him.”