Sixty Years Later, Huskers Honor Jerry Bush

Huskers Return Home to Face Hawkeyes on Sunday

Randy York’s N-Sider

With 50 former Huskers in Lincoln for Nebraska Basketball Legends Weekend, let’s point the spotlight on the late coach who will be honored Sunday afternoon at Pinnacle Bank Arena. Sixty years ago, the late Jerry Bush was in his first year as Nebraska’s head basketball coach. It was 1955. Rebel without a Cause was a popular American movie. Bill Haley and the Comets were rocking around the clock.  The average cost for a new house was $10,950. The average annual salary was $3,850. The cost of a new car was $1,900, and gas was 23 cents a gallon. Ray Kroc built his first McDonald’s in 1955 and for the first time ever, you could buy a cola in a can instead of a bottle.

What a year for Nebraska’s new head basketball coach to move into a house on a one-block 26th street in south Lincoln near the Lincoln Country Club. The Bush house was on the east side of the street next to Dick Beechner, who played golf for Bush at Nebraska. Husker football legend Herman Rohrig also lived on the east side of the same street. Living on the west side were the families of Nebraska assistant football coach Carl Selmer and Bus Whitehead, the Huskers’ iconic basketball star who led the Huskers to two Big Seven Conference titles.

“It was fun living next door to Jerry, his wife Asta and their three daughters – Bonnie, Karen and Jane,” said Beechner, the force behind the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame Foundation. Beechner will drive from Kearney, Neb., to watch Nebraska play Iowa Sunday afternoon in a Big Ten matchup at PBA. The Huskers will be wearing throwback uniforms from the mid-1950s, and 50 Huskers, including eight Nebraska Basketball Hall of Fame inductees, will honor Bush, NU’s head coach from 1955-63 and a Nebraska Hall of Fame honoree in 1991. The Husker Hall-of-Fame players joining the weekend legends are Rex Ekwall (1957 graduate), Wilson Fitzpatrick (1958), Tom Russell (1962), Tom Baack (1968), Bob Siegel (1977), Dave Hoppen (1986), Bo Reid (1991) and Bruce Chubik (1994). Husker players from eight different decades will participate in Sunday afternoon's celebration of Jerry Bush-coached teams.

Huskers Upset KU, No. 1 Kansas State Back-to-Back

Beechner remembers how giddy he was shaking the same hand that basketball legend George Miken once shook. “Jerry Bush loved people. He had great interpersonal skills,” Beechner said. “Longtime Husker fans will never forget when Jerry’s team beat Kansas and Kansas State back-to-back.” Those wins were and still are two of the biggest upsets in Husker history. The first was a 43-41 win over Wilt Chamberlain and fourth-ranked Kansas on Feb. 22, 1958, in the Coliseum (12 days after Wilt had scored 46 points in a 102-46 KU rout of the Huskers in Lawrence). In Nebraska’s next home game, on March 3, 1958, the Huskers stunned No. 1-ranked Kansas State,  55-48. Omaha native and later Olympic and NBA star Bob Boozer led the Wildcats.

The upset of KU was a head-shaker, and the ambush of K-State was beyond belief because it was the first time ever that Nebraska beat a No. 1-ranked basketball team. “The Coliseum was the loudest of any place I’d ever been in when Nebraska beat Kansas and Kansas State back-to-back,” Beechner said. “They threw Jerry off the high diving board two weeks in a row in the old Coliseum pool." Beechner said. "He loved Phil Harris, a popular entertainer in that era. He also loved golf and was Nebraska’s golf coach when I played for him in 1956. He was just a great person. He loved life. He died much too early.”

Karen Hoiberg Shares Memories of Her Likeable Dad

Jerry Bush (pictured above during a game at the NU Coliseum) was born Gerard Leon Bush in Brooklyn, New York, on Sept. 6th, 1914. He died in Lincoln while taking a walk on Oct 27, 1976. “He was 62...way too young!” said Karen Bush Hoiberg, one of two living daughters of the late Jerry and Asta Bush. Bonnie Bush Orpen, the oldest daughter, died last year. Karen is the middle daughter and Jane Bush Loewe of Palmer, Neb., the youngest. “My dad always said the mark of a true athlete is having all daughters,” Karen said. “We all three were DGs (Delta Gammas) at Nebraska.” Karen is the only one to have a son who’s a head college basketball coach. Yes, Fred Hoiberg, “The Mayor” of Ames, Iowa, is Karen and husband Eric’s son. Fred and wife Carol Hoiberg’s 11-year-old twins are in Lincoln this weekend with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Overall, 23 members of the Bush family will participate in the festivities honoring their late dad, grandfather and great grandfather. Karen, a longtime devout Nebraska Cornhusker fan, has been the family ringleader for this weekend’s historic reunion. Brett Sapp, administrative coordinator for men’s basketball, has managed the logistics for a Saturday night banquet honoring all participating “Husker legends” that will be honored Sunday at halftime. 

Bush graduated from St. John’s in New York in 1938. “He met my mom at a church basketball game – her church. The team was made up of Terjesen, Terjesen, Terjesen, Terjesen and BUSH!” she said laughing while acknowledging that she’s been in touch recently with the Terjesen family. “My dad was really close to one of them, Irving Terjesen,” she said. “He went to NYU, so they played together growing up and against each other in college.”  Bush also played for several pre-NBA teams - Rochester Royals, Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons and the Akron Non-Skids. In 1941, he played on an all-star team called the Detroit Eagles. “They won the World Championship that year,” she said.

Nebraska Called off School after Kubacki’s Legendary Shot

A world title is a mere footnote in Bush’s career. Karen sees no comparison to Nebraska calling off school to celebrate 1958's monumental upset over Wilt the Stilt-led Kansas. “I was in eighth-grade when Jimmy Kubacki made the winning shot against Kansas,” Hoiberg said. “Due to injury, Jimmy was on the bench the entire game and kept begging my dad to let him play. Finally, my dad said: ‘OK. Suit up!’” Kubacki sprinted to the locker room before landing on the doorstep of history. “It was so thrilling when Jimmy made the winning basket!” Karen said. “What an awesome story!!”

And what a huge upset, pulled straight out of a book of fables. Wouldn’t it be thrilling, and perhaps, even a little bit awesome Sunday, if the Huskers can celebrate their third-ever Legends Weekend with an upset of their own? Upsetting the Hawkeyes would put Nebraska’s season on a dramatically different track and thrill the Jerry Bush reunion group. The most exhilarated people in the building, though, might be the three Nebraska Basketball Hall-of-Famers who played for Bush and will be in Lincoln Sunday –  Ekwall (pictured above), Russell, and Fitzpatrick. "Jerry had so much energy and enthusiasm. He was fairly young and such a great motivator,” Ekwall told me. “He made it fun to play for him.” Through the years, Ekwall kept in touch with Bush’s daughters. “I came from a very small school (Holmesville, Neb.) and appreciated the opportunity to go to school and play basketball. I made a whole lot of lifetime friends and still enjoy being part of the University of Nebraska.”

Spending a Saturday Afternoon with Former Neighbors

Karen Hoiberg cherishes her Lincoln roots and kept track of her old neighborhood. When the Rohrigs moved out, Nebraska Head Football Coach Bill Jennings and his family moved in.  Vicky Jennings, who married Husker football fullback Noel Martin, became a lifelong friend. Bob Cerv, who earned Husker letters in baseball and basketball, also lived on that south Lincoln street after his major league career. On Saturday afternoon, multiple members of the Bush family and friends gathered in Lincoln’s Haymarket Area to watch Iowa State beat Texas. Mark Whitehead, son of the late Bus Whitehead, joined the gathering and still laughs about Karen Hoiberg telling “almost everyone I know” that she was the family's longtime babysitter beginning very early in his childhood. “Bus was an assistant basketball coach at Nebraska,” Karen pointed out. “We’ve had a longstanding and meaningful relationship with the Whitehead family, and we are so honored to be a part of this weekend. Eric and I both graduated from Nebraska, and we will always be Husker fans.”

On Sunday, Karen Hoiberg and Jane Loewe, the surviving daughters of Jerry and Asta Bush, will be presented a framed throwback jersey from Stan Matzke and Ted Owens at halftime. Matzke was a captain of two Nebraska teams under Bush, and Owens is a former KU head coach who played against Bush-coached teams while at Oklahoma and serving as an assistant coach at Kansas. Owens' son, Teddy, is director of Nebraska's basketball operations. The framed jersey is a replica of the jerseys the Huskers will wear to commemorate Jerry Bush's first season as Nebraska's head coach in 1954-55. No wonder those who embrace that time of their lives can still hear the lyrics to the song Moments to Remember, a 1955 Billboard hit performed by The Four Lads:

Though summer turns to winter
And the present disappears
The laughter we were glad to share
Will echo through the years

Moments to remember will come to life Sunday afternoon at a sold-out Pinnacle Bank Arena, and two who will be touched watching a video and a tribute from former Huskers will be sitting in their second-level seats they wouldn't trade for any others. Mike Babcock and wife Barb are devoted fans of Husker men's and women's basketball. Mike, Nebraska's foremost historian for football and men's basketball, first became interested in NU hoops when Jerry Bush was head coach. "It didn't matter if the Huskers won or lost," he said. "For a youngster like me, it was exciting either way. It occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been. People would be interested to know that. By all indications, Jerry Bush was a promoter. Among the first  things he did was meet with the band and the cheerleaders. He wanted a great game day atmosphere. He'd love PBA crowds and Tim Miles."

Send a comment to ryork@huskers.com (Please include city, state)

Follow Randy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RandyYorkNsider

Randy’s N-Sider Blog Archive

Randy’s N-Sider Column Archive

 

Voices from Husker Nation

I graduated from the University  of Nebraska in 1958 and remember going to basketball games when Jerry Bush was head coach. I have lived in Ames since 1961, but still a Husker fan. Karen Hoiberg is a close friend, and her son Fred starred in basketball in Ames and at Iowa State. Fred wore #32 in college, and I kidded Karen that I made #32 famous in high school at Allen, Nebraska. The Hoibergs are a great family. Ray Schoenrock, Ames, Iowa

Great story on honoring Jerry Bush and Husker legends. I graduated from North Platte High School in 1960, and this was a great tribute to the Bush family and a trip down memory lane for me. Larry Andrews, Omaha, Nebraska