Rimington: Nebraska?s Version of a Renaissance Man

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Research the definition of “Renaissance Man” and you will find the perfect description online: a person who is skilled in multiple fields or multiple disciplines…someone who has a broad base of knowledge. While the term Renaissance Man is largely based on various artists and scholars who pursued multiple fields of studies, it can apply to diverse writings, a master of art, an engineer or basically anyone who chases a variety of disciplines with great success and style, especially if you put photography in the same sentence with physics and philosophy. All disciplines require a certain amount of poise, polish and panache, and that’s why Dave Rimington, the first football inductee into the University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame inaugural class, fits that description like his crouched torso fits the Rimington Trophy, awarded annually in Lincoln to honor the best center in all of college football.

In a telephone interview, I try to merge Renaissance with Rimington, but he won’t bite, so we spend 50 minutes discussing No. 50’s most magical moments inside football and outside football. By the time we finish our conversation, I don’t tell the 1997 College Football Hall-of-Fame inductee that I have more than enough evidence to prove my point. I can relate Rimington to Renaissance with a reasonable resume relying on remarkable rewards, results and respect. One of the most decorated players in college football history, Rimington was the first Husker enshrined in the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame in 2004. He is the only two-time Outland Trophy winner in college football history (1981 and 1982). He is also one of 11 players to win the Outland Trophy and the Lombardi Award in the same season.

Lincoln Has Been the Home of the Dave Rimington Trophy for 15 Years

In addition to the Rimington Trophy, launched 15 years ago, the Big Ten Conference has presented the Rimington-Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year award since 2010, created in Rimington’s and Orlando Pace’s honor in the first year that Nebraska competed in the Big Ten. Rimington won the NCAA Top Five Award in 1983, joining Stanford’s John Elway as two football players ranked among the top five scholar-athletes in all of college athletics across all sports.

For the last 20 years, Rimington has served as President of the Boomer Esiason Foundation (BEF) after working two years before that with the Cincinnati Bengals’ quarterback. Under Rimington’s leadership, the Foundation has raised more than $105 million toward finding a cure for cystic fibrosis. Rimington, wife Lisa, and their four children live in an apartment across the street from Central Park in New York City.

When Rimington was a kid, his parents had a trailer and the family spent the summer months visiting all 48 states before he graduated from Omaha South High School. As a Husker, he played a football game at Hawaii and visited Alaska two years after he played for the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL, sealing the deal for No. 50 to visit all 50 states. Nebraska’s legend says his favorite movie of all time is Rocky, favorite holiday is Christmas, favorite word to describe himself is dedicated, favorite role model is Winston Churchill, favorite color is red, favorite singer is Randy Travis, and favorite feeling is going to bed every night with a sense of fulfillment.

Truly Glorious Sights to Behold: Rimington's Photos on Facebook

Anyone who follows Dave Rimington on Facebook need not guess what his favorite pastime is – photography! With that in mind, The N-Sider suggestion of the month is urging others to become a friend of Dave Rimington on Facebook just to see the splendor, wonder and glory of his photographic eye. Let the record show that through two decades of global fund-raising to fight cystic fibrosis, Rimington has visited 54 countries. “The only continent I haven’t been to is Antarctica, and I’m scheduled to go there for 10 days sometime early next year,” he said.

Since Rimington sidesteps any connection to Renaissance Man, I simply ask him when he fell in love with photography. “I started taking pictures seriously nine years ago when the kids were born,” he told me. “Before that, I shot pictures of people putting plates on tables and everything else. When you’re one of two people in a foundation, you do everything. When I got serious, I started shooting landscapes. Now I take a camera with me everywhere I go. Mostly, I use a smaller Sony, an Alpha 7-2, their latest and greatest with an 18-200-millimeter lens on it."

I tell Renaissance Man how much I liked his photos in Costa Rica this spring. “It was cool,” he said. “Mike Knox and Mitch Krenk (former teammates) came down, so it was nice to hang around with them. Mitch won the fishing tournament in Costa Rica the year before. He had never fished until a couple years ago. He started out with a bang and never looked back.”

No. 50 Will Celebrate His 55th Birthday on Friday, May 22, 2015

I ask Rimington if he ever looks back, and the thought strikes a chord. “I’ll be 55 May 22nd,” he said. “I’m eligible to retire with the NFL (where he spent seven seasons). But I probably won’t do that. I’ll continue working here another five or six years. I love my job, but New York City is a tough place to live because it’s so expensive. The kids are getting to the age where you want to get them out of an urban place and get them settled down. I don’t think my kids would ever walk down the street by themselves without some adult or parent taking care of them. When I was kid, I ran around everywhere. They need to get out and experience life a little bit. New York is not Nebraska, which would be a great place to settle down and retire.”

The Rimingtons were college sweethearts, but waited until their 40s to have children. They have 9-year-old triplets – Shawn, a boy, and girls Chase and Sienna. Savannah, 7, is the youngest daughter. The family enjoys summer trips to Dave’s hometown of Omaha, where he taught children and teens what it meant to be a true champion. With his high school coaches no longer involved in football camps, Rimington has cut down dramatically on those opportunities. Awards fade and accolades rarely reach the conversation of a Renaissance Man who focuses on life now, not what it was when he played on teams that came oh-so-close to winning a national championship. Clemson ended one of those dreams with a 22-15 Orange Bowl win. Penn State blocked a more likely title path with a controversial 27-24 win over Nebraska in State College, Pa. – the only blemish in a 12-1 season. That's why, nearly a quarter century later, the 1982 Huskers are still considered Nebraska's best team that did not win a national championship.

Rimington steered clear of the past and sent positive vibes about the “magical time” he relished with his teammates and coaches – a time that will be featured in a future blog. More than three decades after Rimington was the Big Eight Offensive Player of the Year, the Orange Bowl Offensive Player of the Game, a two-time All-American and a two-time Academic All-American, Renaissance Man looks at the world through rose-colored lenses. With his No. 50 jersey retired, he landed on two All-20th Century Teams – the Walter Camp Foundation and Sports Illustrated.

A Little Known Fact: Rimington's Small Role for Big Ten Champion Badgers

Rimington returned to Nebraska and earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1990 with a major in economics. He was a first-round NFL draft pick who played four years in Cincinnati and three in Philadelphia before injuries sent him to Wisconsin, where he received a master’s degree in international business and worked as a graduate assistant under Barry Alvarez. Few know that Rimington helped the Badgers win the Big Ten in 1993, plus win the Rose Bowl. Then Boomer hired him, and he truly never looked back.

Renaissance Man led the charge for Boomer’s Foundation to donate $10 million to help develop a drug that was approved and has provided a cystic fibrosis cure for 4 percent of the CF population. “That drug has helped reverse the disease for that 4 percent,” he said. “Now, once they get FDA approval, we’re one of the partners in a $3.3 billion drug that is looking to cure up to 50 percent with different genetic mutation for CF. It takes a lot of money and a lot of collaboration to find a cure. We’re enthused that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is part of the plan to bring pharmaceutical companies and donors together."

Life is never boring for Rimington, who will be in Lincoln this September as one of 22 Huskers who will be inducted into the first-ever University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame. He relishes being informed about the honor with separate phone calls from Nebraska Director of Athletics Shawn Eichorst and first-year Nebraska Head Football Coach Mike Riley. “I was out of the country, but both left me really, really nice, heartfelt messages,” Rimington said.

Big Retirement Question: Will Dave Rimington Live in Omaha or Lincoln?

Rimington said he was "shocked" about receiving the award and ended up reading about Jim Hartung, who was a high school classmate of his at Omaha South. "When I wrestled in high school, I would watch Jim (Hartung) and Phil (Cahoy) flying out of the air and wondering how they did it," he said. "How cool is to be in the same induction class with a high school classmate and an Olympic gold medalist like Jim? It will be an honor to stand on the field together for the season opener against BYU.”

Maybe the Rimington family will end up back in Omaha, or, perhaps, Lincoln. “I would love to live in either city,” Rimington told me. “I knew the Old Market was going to blow up in Omaha and it did. I love downtown Omaha. Lincoln's Haymarket copied what Omaha did and maybe did even better, putting the baseball field, then Pinnacle Bank Arena near Memorial Stadium. Lincoln is such a vibrant city right now. The Haymarket is an exciting place. There’s so much there, including a lot of start-up companies. I think you’re going to see a lot more people who went to school in Lincoln stay around and think others will decide to come back and live there.”

Who knows? Maybe a certain multiple Hall-of-Famer, whose trophy is featured prominently in the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame Foundation building near the Huskers' baseball and softball facilties, will be among the returnees someday. He would, after all, live in the same city that promotes, hosts and honors every single winner of the Dave Rimington Trophy.

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