Longtime Nebraska donor Dick Herman Sunday night was named the recipient of the 2011-12 Dr. Barbara Hibner Trailblazer Award at the Nebraska Student-Athlete Recognition Banquet, an event that Herman and his late brother, Dale Herman, privately funded to create 21 years ago and continues to fund through an endowment.
Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne presented the Trailblazer Award, which was first given in 2000 to honor outstanding support and generous contributions to women's athletics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2007, it was renamed the Dr. Barbara Hibner Trailblazer Award in honor of Dr. Barbara Hibner, a longtime member of the Nebraska Athletic Department and inaugural recipient of the award. Dr. Hibner died on March 7, 2007.
Because of the Hermans' donation, thousands of student-athletes from Nebraska's women's athletic teams have been recognized and celebrated in a public, respectful manner. To date, 21 women have earned the Female Student-Athlete of the Year honor, and 16 women's teams have earned the Herman Team GPA Award.
"Dick Herman's biggest joy is seeing the smiles on the faces of Nebraska student-athletes for something that goes beyond athletics, and over the years, at least half of those smiles were on the faces of our women athletes," Associate Athletic Director for Academics Dennis Leblanc said. "The Trailblazer Award is focused on someone who has done great things for women athletes, and Dick certainly qualifies. When he and his late brother had the idea to finance our student-athlete academic recognition banquet in 1989, he wanted to make sure it would help all student-athletes."
The Hermans also were instrumental in funding the Hall of Distinction in West Memorial Stadium. The Hall of Distinction recognizes Nebraska's nation-leading Academic All-Americans, NCAA Top Eight Award recipients and more than 5,600 student-athletes who have both lettered and graduated from the University of Nebraska.
"At one point in time, there was more focus on the revenue-producing sports and in the mid-1980s, when our men's and women's programs came together in the academic area, it was because of a guy like Dick," Leblanc said. "He was ahead of his time and had donated to this area so we could expand women's athletics and hire additional staff. His vision helped us improve the size of our facility and accommodate all student-athletes."
"No one has given so generously to each of our 13 women's athletic teams, and to each one of our female student-athletes, as the Herman family," Osborne said. "When it came time to name this year's Trailblazer Award winner, it was unanimous that Dick should be this year's recipient. The gift he and Dale made was with the intent to honor all that qualified academically, regardless of gender and sport. Dick has been an exceptionally generous and loyal Husker fan. No one has been more supportive of the student-athletes' academic achievements than Dick. He has truly made a difference."
Past winners of the award, in addition to Hibner, include the Raimondi family in 2001, Ione Bowlin in 2002, the Betty Geis family in 2003, Carol Frost in 2004, Pinnacle Sports Productions in 2005, Dr. Joanne Owens Nauslar in 2006, current head softball coach Rhonda Revelle in 2007, the Stephen Rohman family in 2008, former NU volleyball head coach Terry Pettit in 2009 and the Tom and Mary Hendricks family in 2010.