Beyond the Highlights, Mooney Shaffer PerseveredBeyond the Highlights, Mooney Shaffer Persevered
Women's Tennis

Beyond the Highlights, Mooney Shaffer Persevered

University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame

Randy York’s N-Sider

Official Blog of the Huskers

Every Nebraska varsity letterwinner, it seems, likes to put the word life in the same sentence with academics and athletics. And why wouldn’t they? When the music stops and the glory’s gone, life is a much more challenging battle than becoming the Huskers’ first All-America honoree in women’s tennis, not to mention their first-ever inductee into the inaugural class of the University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame.

Ask Liz (Mooney) Shaffer, the Englewood, Colo., native who arrived at Nebraska in the early 1980s, having signed her national letter of intent to play tennis, but thinking she also would be shooting baskets and snagging rebounds. "My meal ticket was with tennis, but my main love at the time was basketball," she said. Teaming up with Cari L. Groce, Liz became the first Nebraska women’s tennis player in the NCAA era to win 50 singles matches, notch 50 doubles victories and deliver a combined 100 wins overall.

Battling Nonstop in Tennis Enabled Shaffer to Battle for Her Life

Smacking a ball with a pressurized rubber core and felt covering was not what Liz Mooney, pictured above, envisioned when she headed to Lincoln. But it’s a good thing she landed in tennis and specialized in nonstop action because, well, truth be known, she’s lucky to be alive right now, let alone anticipating Hall of Fame enshrinement at Memorial Stadium when the Huskers open their football season against BYU.

Shaffer wakes up every morning counting what she calls “blessings beyond belief”.

Beyond the fanfare and sheer joy of being the first Husker women’s tennis player selected into the Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame, Liz sees the honor as so incredible, she can’t help but wonder how she became part of a 22-member induction class that features eight national player-of-the-year award winners and a small squadron of Olympic champions.

“All I can say is ‘Wow!’” Liz said, admitting that her wow factor stretches beyond what she and her doubles partner accomplished on the tennis court three decades ago. Please forgive Liz for trying to compress all that’s happened since then, including working for three years after graduating from Nebraska with a B.S. in Business Administration and getting married.

 Becoming Full-time Mom Became Front and Center of Shaffer’s Life

“Becoming a full-time mom became front-and-center in my life,” she said. “Within 9½ years, we had six children, so life has been crazy busy yet wonderfully amazing ever since." Shaffer can say that only because the turbo-charged, ultra-competitive, never-say-die flame within her worked more masterfully in her life than it did on the court. “I believe,” she said, wearing a cross necklace while visiting Nebraska’s new Sid and Hazel Dillon Tennis Center this summer.

Beyond the highlights of her stellar collegiate career, Shaffer persevered. “My competitive spirit is God-given,” she said. “It’s helped me overcome and endure through some really tough times. In my childhood, it was an alcoholic mom. On the tennis court, it was coming back from a big deficit or injury and digging deeper than I ever knew was possible. Eight years ago, it was a tumor and a disease (acromegaly), followed by brain surgery, which was followed by eight additional surgeries.” Through it all, husband Jim, pictured above with Liz, was a rock.

Acromegaly is a hormonal disorder that causes the pituitary gland to produce excessive amounts of growth hormone during adulthood. It increases the size of bones in the feet, hands and face, and can lead to serious illness if untreated. In children, a similar condition is known as gigantism. Battling the illness was tough on Liz specifically and the entire family generally.

Throughout Hardships, Suffering, Liz Reached Goal to Lose 100 Pounds

The best news through all the hardships, adversity and suffering? “They didn’t rob me of the discipline and the competitiveness deep within me,” Liz said, and here’s the kicker: It has taken her five years, but this past spring she was finally able to reach her goal of losing more than 100 pounds. Check out the video embedded above. Learning that Shaffer will be the first to represent her sport in the Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame “came out of the blue” while she was starting to walk and live like a normal person. Shaffer has cleared several sets of high and low hurdles and come a long way since her illness and surgeries.

The only blessings she wanted or envisioned were living life as a healthy wife and reconnecting with her kids in a maternal way. With an amazing recovery, Liz Mooney Shaffer continues to give back what she’s been given, beginning to volunteer at the Assure Women's Center, which is a safe place that empowers women who are facing unplanned pregnancies with information to make a sound choice.

Shaffer Remembers the "Mesmerizing" Bob Devaney Sports Center

The sunshine is welcome and helps Shaffer reflect back on her own recruitment to Nebraska. “I walked into the Bob Devaney Sports Center and was mesmerized by what I saw and what I experienced,” she said. “I tried out for both basketball and tennis. The athletes that I tried out with were so supportive and encouraging and the coaches were dedicated. I knew Nebraska was a special place, and I knew it early on.”

Shaffer is confident that all student-athletes can attest to the difficulty of being a full-time student and athlete, especially when travel was involved. “I found that as long as I was honest with the professors (in particular about travel and having to miss class), they were great to work with,” she said. “Athletes who were prideful and had a sense of entitlement were the ones who ran into roadblocks with professors.”

Shaffer, Groce Made History Together, Became First Tennis All-Americans

Athletically, Shaffer and Groce (pictured above with Coach Kathy Hawkins, left) made history and became All-Americans at the NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships in 1986. “That just didn’t happen for Nebraska tennis. It was quite an honor,” Liz said, acknowledging that her “career” has been to be a stay-at-home mom for her six kids. “I cannot compare the two!” she said.

Liz and her husband, Jim, live in Omaha and enjoy visiting Lincoln. “I loved the livability of Lincoln when I was there,” she said. “Being near downtown was such a plus for me because I didn’t have a car in my first three years of school. I could walk to classes, to the Devaney Center and to Memorial Stadium for the game and walk downtown to catch a movie or eat dinner.”

When it comes to giving advice, Mooney Shaffer believes that making an extra effort to help others goes a long way. She’s also a firm believer that a compliment doesn’t cost you anything, but pays great dividends when you share one with others.

The best advice she’s ever received is two-fold: 1) “Situations don’t change but our perspective does,” she said, and 2) “Anger doesn’t change your circumstances; it just changes you.”

Life lessons are important. “I’ve learned the hard way,” she said. “In fact, I remember a specific incident in high school where I failed to keep a specific confidence. I lost the friendship forever. To this day, I’m about as loyal as they come.”

 

Family Celebrated Mom’s Health with Two-Week Cruise in Europe

This summer was a fitting time of celebration for the Shaffer family, which took a two-week cruise in July to Rome, Venice and Croatia, plus a stop in Turkey to see Ephesus, where the Apostle Paul visited and taught. Pictured, from left, in Santorini, Greece, are daughter Kylie (22), Liz, son Nate (16), son Jordan (24), daughter-in-law Jocelyn (Jordan’s wife), son Josh (17), daughter Lindsay (25), son Dan (20) and husband Jim. 

Shaffer Makes a Prediction: New Facilities Will Attract 'Serious Talent'

We end this Hall of Fame profile with the wisdom of a hard-working, competitive student-athlete who became a loving wife and mother and held her kids up at the same time she was fighting one medical battle after another. Yes, she gained weight, but never lost her faith, spirit or the competitive drive that she honed as a student-athlete at Nebraska.

“I’ve had the privilege to tour the new soccer/tennis complex,” Shaffer said. “I literally was awestruck with everything that I saw. What an incredible facility and what a powerful recruiting tool this will be for future student-athletes.”

Back in the 1980s, “I was amazed walking into the Bob Devaney Sports Center,” Shaffer recalled. “It was one of the coolest places I’d ever seen. I’m so glad what Nebraska has done to restore that amazing building and how they’ve built such an incredible indoor and outdoor tennis facility and soccer complex.”

During the tour, “it reminded me of how awestruck I was when I was recruited,” she said. “In much the same way, but with a much greater magnitude, this new tennis/soccer complex is going to attract some serious talent!”

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