The Red Life with Karen Jennings

Ever since high school, people called her "Big Red".

It is fitting that Karen Jennings, a 6-2, forward with long, curly red hair, chose to play for the Big Red of Nebraska after a storied high school career at Tri-Center Community High School in Iowa. Perhaps it is even more fitting that a shining example of Nebraska and Midwestern values will be a permanent representative of the University of Nebraska in one of the most select groups in all of collegiate sports - the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame.

Jennings, who won the Wade Trophy as the women's college basketball's national player of the year in 1993, will be inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame on June 30, 2008, at the College Sports Information Directors (CoSIDA) National Convention in Tampa, Fla. She will join four other all-time collegiate greats in the 21st induction class into the Hall of Fame.

The 103 Hall of Fame members include athletes, coaches, administrators and sports personalities across all levels of college sports. The University of Nebraska leads the nation with more than 250 CoSIDA Academic All-America awards all-time, across all sports, but only one of those Academic All-Americans - Dave Rimington in 2004 - has previously been chosen for the Hall of Fame.

The award is so prestigious that legendary sportscaster Dick Enberg, who himself is in the Hall of Fame and is the official spokesperson for the CoSIDA Academic All-America programs, calls the honorees personally to inform them of their selection.

"When Dick Enberg called me, it blew me away," Jennings said. "I was stunned, amazed and shocked. When I look at the list of the names of the great people who are in the Academic All-America Hall of Fame, and then realize that I am now on that list with them, I can't believe it. "When I consider that I am in the same group of Hall of Famers as John Wooden, it is unbelievable.

"Dick told me that I was in the creme-de-la-creme of NCAA sports, academic achievements and honors. I told him he was my favorite Wimbledon announcer of all time."

Jennings' compliment to Enberg might seem a little out of the ordinary, but in addition to being one of the greatest student-athletes in the history of NCAA Division I women's basketball, Jennings is also a talented tennis player. In fact, she competed in USTA Team Tennis for several years, winning Missouri Valley Section titles in mixed doubles in 2000 and 2002. She was also a Nebraska District Champion in 2005 - when she was eight months pregnant.

Needless to say, Jennings takes her tennis seriously, just like any other competitive endeavor she has ever approached.

Jennings has achieved remarkable success on the court, in the classroom, in the community and in her career, but she remains down to Earth. She is strikingly humble considering her life-long achievements, and she ranks the classic Nebraska values of hard work and placing her family first as two of the cornerstones of her success.

Jennings grew up on a farm outside of Persia, a southwest Iowa town of approximately 200, in the 1980s. Her father, Jim, poured a basketball court for brother, Bill, and her to play on when they were kids and her love of the game was born.

"Both of my parents were extremely into sports," Jennings said. "My dad was a good athlete and was a high jumper in track and played small-division sports in college, so he had a great love of sports. My mom was a teacher and she was really into sports and very supportive of us, too. When I was growing up, if you weren't practicing a sport or studying, then you had to work on the farm. Let's just say I didn't do much farm work."

Karen was an all-state selection in both basketball and volleyball at Tri-Center High School. In fact, she earned her nickname - "Big Red" - as a volleyball player.

"When we played volleyball, I had a T-shirt that said 'Big Red' and my high school setter had one that said 'Little Yellow', so the two of us kind of went hand-in-hand," Jennings said. "It just kind of stayed with me. Coach (Angela) Beck actually just called me 'Red'. As a player at Nebraska, we even had a play called 'Candy Red', which meant get the ball to Karen."

Head Coach Angela Beck, who described 'Candy Red' as "everybody get out of the lane so we can get the ball to Karen," helped bring "Big Red" to Lincoln as a freshman for the 1989-90 season. Jennings had averaged a staggering 59 points per game as a senior playing six-on-six basketball at Tri-Center. Jennings was not only an All-Iowa performer in basketball and volleyball, she was also the state runner-up in the discus and finished fifth in the state in the shot put. She was also a finalist for the Dial National Scholar-Athlete Award after being named the valedictorian of her high school class of approximately 60 at Tri-Center.

"I wish I could say I discovered Karen and practiced some kind of voodoo to get her to come to Nebraska, but the fact was she decided she was coming to Nebraska, and I was lucky enough to be the head coach there at the time," Beck said. "She more than any other player I have ever coached had her priorities in order. She was an amazing goal-setter. She was coming to Nebraska because her family was there.  Basketball came first, but she was also going to be a great student. Her social life and other things came farther down the list. She set her mind to accomplish goals and then she put her entire heart into achieving those goals."

Jennings appeared in all 28 games for the Huskers as a true freshman, including 15 starts. She produced one of the best freshman seasons in school history in 1989-90, averaging 13.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game with her parents, Jim and Verna, and her grandparents, Vern and June Redingaugh in the stands for every home game and most of the away games.

Despite being named the Big Eight Co-Newcomer of the Year, Jennings and the Huskers struggled to a 10-18 record.

"We did not lose 10 games my entire high school career, so being 10-18 was very, very difficult for me," Jennings said. "I did not feel good about my performance at all. The turning point came for me toward the end of my freshman season when I decided that I needed to get in better physical condition. I needed to get stronger, get faster and basically work myself to death to get better the next season.

"From the day we lost in the Big Eight Tournament in 1990, I started working that hard. In the month after the season that everyone else took off, I worked harder than I had ever worked in my life to get better. I put my nose to the grindstone and got it done. The coaches recognized that and chose me for the Big Eight select team that summer. After that I just kept working harder and we all got better."

Beck, who has coached at the professional and high school levels since leaving Nebraska following the 1996-97 season, agreed that Jennings' determination helped establish a winning tradition at Nebraska.

"Karen was the highest-skilled player I ever coached, but she wasn't necessarily a great natural athlete," Beck said. "She was just willing to outwork everybody to make up for whatever deficiencies she might have. Her work ethic was unbelievable, and she loved to focus on the joy of achieving a goal that she set for herself."

With Jennings fueling Nebraska's fire, the Huskers improved to 17-11 in her second season in 1990-91, and she earned All-Big Eight honors for the first time by averaging 20.3 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. She improved her field goal shooting from 53 percent as a freshman to 57 percent as a sophomore, while improving her free throw shooting from 60 percent as a rookie to 75 percent in her second season.

Off the court, Jennings also excelled as a sophomore, earning first-team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors for the first time.

Jennings' hard work continued to pay off as a junior, when she averaged an NU school record 25.3 points per game to go along with 10.0 rebounds per contest, while helping the Huskers to a 21-11 record. She captured her first Big Eight Player-of-the-Year award and was named the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year for women's basketball.

As a senior, Jennings led the Huskers to one of the best seasons on the court in school history, as NU finished with a 23-8 overall record as the Big Eight Conference runners-up. Nebraska also won the first NCAA Tournament game in school history with an 81-58 win over San Diego at the Bob Devaney Sports Center on March 17, 1993.

She was named a first-team Kodak All-American and won the Wade Trophy as the national player of the year, finishing her career with 2,405 points and 1,000 rebounds. After earning selection as a CoSIDA First-Team Academic All-American for the third straight season, Jennings was named the Academic All-American of the Year for the second time. She won the Big Eight Female Athlete-of-the-Year award, and was a finalist for the NCAA Woman-of-the-Year honor, while also claiming a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

All of the honors came with her family watching every step of the way.

"My parents went to every home game and almost all of my away games when I was in college, and my grandparents never missed a home game. It was just a lot of fun," Jennings said. "If my parents would have lived overseas and would have been able to watch me play, I think I would have probably played a lot longer."

At the time of Jennings' graduation from Nebraska in 1993, the WNBA did not exist and there was no legitimate professional league in the United States. So, after earning her degree in exercise physiology with a 3.756 GPA, she traveled to France for a brief pro career in 1993-94.

"I just felt like I wanted to be closer to home," Jennings said. "I came back to Nebraska and was accepted into PT (physical therapy) school at the (University of Nebraska) Medical Center."

After returning home, Jennings was honored by the University of Nebraska with the retirement of her jersey (No. 51) in 1994, becoming the first Husker women's basketball player to ever have a jersey retired.

She completed her master's degree in physical therapy from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1998. She served as a physical therapist and a member of the Sports Medicine Team at Methodist Hospital in Omaha from 1998 to 2002, while also teaching kinesiology at University College of Healing Arts.

Along the way, she was honored as the captain of Nebraska's All-Century Team announced in conjunction with NU's Silver Anniversary of women's varsity athletics in 2000. While awards kept coming from the NU Athletic Department, Jennings continued to give back to the community and the University of Nebraska.

She participated in Nebraska's "Breakfast for Champions" on five occasions and was involved in Nebraska's Cather Circle from 2003 to 2005. She served on the N-Club Board of Directors in 1997, and is a regular attendee at Husker women's basketball games. Jennings was also a featured speaker at Nebraska's "Life After Sports" seminar, and a participant in NU's "Athletes Helping Athletes" Networking Night. She was also a ribbon cutter at the unveiling of Nebraska's Academic Hall of Distinction in 2004.

"I think it is instrumental that current student-athletes have a chance to see the influence that the University of Nebraska can have on their careers," Jennings said. "When I was a player, a lot of people came to speak to us, and I always thought it was good to see how they were succeeding in their lives after sports. I want to be able to pass that on to others as well."

Current Nebraska women's basketball coach Connie Yori said she appreciated the support Jennings has offered to the program over the years, while recognizing Jennings as an outstanding example of Nebraska values.

"In following Karen's high school, college and professional careers for more than 20 years, I know that she has values that Nebraskans hold in the highest regard," Yori said. "Karen has been a tremendous representative for Nebraska women's basketball and Nebraska athletics. She worked very hard during her career as a student-athlete, and she has applied that work ethic throughout her life, which has helped her be successful in her career."

In 2002, Jennings shifted gears in her career, becoming a realtor at CBSHome Real Estate in Omaha. She is a licensed realtor in both Nebraska and Iowa and has consistently ranked among the top 25 among the 650 agents in the company. She earned the company's Circle of Excellence award in 2005, 2006 and 2007, while earning National Sales Awards during those same years.

"I would never have thought I would go into real estate, but my brother was a broker and he kept telling me I would be great because I was so competitive. I finally decided to give it a shot and he was right," Jennings said. "I love the challenge of it and it is really competitive. Even in what is a little bit of a down market, I am having one of my best years ever."

Along with the changing responsibilities of her career in the past five years, the 37-year-old Jennings has added greater family responsibilities. She and her husband, Ron, celebrated the birth of their daughter, Claire, in July of 2005.

"It is very challenging because my daughter is so strong-willed. It is a consistent lesson in patience for me," Jennings said. "I am really focused on helping her build her self-esteem, and helping her learn to work hard and keep trying. I use the guidance of my mother, and my husband, Ron, has been a really great father. We complement each other pretty well because he is so laid-back and easy-going."

Ron and Claire will be in Tampa with Karen when she joins some of the greatest names in NCAA sports in the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame. With her family by her side, she will receive possibly the biggest honor of her career. "Big Red" wouldn't have it any other way.