Hall-of-Famer Helped Save Nebraska and Olympic Wrestling

University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame Inaugural Class

Video: Bill Scherr, NCAA/World Champion, Olympic Medalist

Sports Illustrated Feature on Twin Brothers Bill, Jim Scherr

Randy York N-Sider

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The first and only wrestler in the inaugural University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame class missed last September’s enshrinement in the shadows of Memorial Stadium for a compelling reason. His daughter was married in Chicago that same weekend.

“It was a bittersweet moment for me,” said Bill Scherr, one of the most powerful sports figures in Husker history. One of three Huskers to win world wrestling championships, Scherr joins Nebraska Olympic champions Rulon Gardner and Jordon Burroughs for that elite achievement.

The 2014 USA Wrestling Man of the Year, Bill Scherr not only helped save the sport as chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling (CPOW), but also helped save wrestling at Nebraska. How? He and his twin brother, Jim Scherr, the longtime CEO for the U.S. Olympic Committee, gave Nebraska’s wrestling program a needed transfusion in the mid-1980s, forcing athletic administrators to change their minds about dropping the sport.

Three decades later, the Scherr twins believe Nebraska has one of the top 10, if not one of the top five wrestling programs in the country. Please join our Q&A conversation with Bill Scherr, who gives us all an important history lesson about Nebraska wrestling.  

Q: You and your twin brother have heroic legacies at Nebraska. How did you help save Nebraska wrestling?

A: “When Jim and I came into the program; we were part of the first freshman recruiting year under then-new head coach Bob Fiers. We were part of a group of people that included upper-classmen and other folks who joined us. Ultimately, we had the highest finish in modern school history, finishing fourth our senior year in 1984. We had a great year, a great team, and we built on that foundation. Prior to us coming from South Dakota, the team had some really pretty miserable seasons prior to Bob Fehrs becoming the head coach. Since that change, we’ve maintained that tradition. If you talk to people outside of Nebraska wrestling, there's a respect that goes with that, given the 30 years of pretty successful higher level teams that compete in the top 10 or top 20 of the country year, in and year out. It's a great source of pride to know the program is on a level that really very few programs in the country are. I would put Nebraska in as one of the top five or 10 wrestling powers in the country, which is a very gratifying thing for those of us who came in when the school really had several years of losing records. To go from where we were to one of the top five or 10 perennial powerhouse programs, that's progress.“

Q: You and your brother are fellow South Dakota natives like Mark Manning. What makes Coach Manning a great coach and why do kids love to wrestle for him?

A: “I think there’s a couple of things about Mark (pictured above). He's got an enthusiastic and infectious personality. If you meet him you can't help but feel positive around Mark, and I think that's a huge benefit when you're working with young men as he does. He's able to give them an enthusiastic, positive attitude when they come into the program and that's the way he runs the program and coaches his kids. He cares about the kids, he cares about the University and the program and he wants to do well so there's a great deal of pride in (his) work ethic associated with his efforts. He's obviously a great wrestler in his own right and understands wrestling at the highest levels in the internationals and in the U.S. He's always active in coaching at the international level, so he's in-tune with current wrestling. So if you think about it, the recipe for a great coach; someone who is enthusiastic, has a good personality, cares about success and cares about their kids and take pride in the program and then one who understands and knows the sport at the highest level. Mark has all three of those ingredients, and I think that makes for a great coach when you see the product on the field of play is very good year in and year out."

Q: In your mind, why do Nebraska fans have such a prominent national reputation?

A: "You like Nebraska fans for two reasons. First, they love their sport and second, they love their University. You don't see that so much in other places. You certainly see people that have a stir-crazy dedication to their teams and to their sports and Nebraska certainly has that, but it's different than what I would call a fan. The people that follow Nebraska sports have more than what I would call being a fan. They have a love affair with the University that's a deep commitment and dedication to the sports and the teams at the University. I think that's very different than being a fan of Ohio State and loving the fact the University wins. The people here have a respectful love for the University and the sports at the University. They separate themselves from almost every other school, mainly because  they're a classy bunch of people with good values and they treat other teams with respect. Again, you just don't see that very often. They're wonderful Midwestern people with good values and treat their opponents with respect. You just can't ask for a better group of people than Nebraska fans."

Q: Why has Jordan Burroughs become not only the face of Nebraska wrestling, but also the face of USA and Olympic wrestling?

A: "Jordan is a couple of things. One, he's obviously just a tremendous athlete, but you don't win the way he's won at the level he's won at with the consistency in which he's won by being a good athlete. You do that by being dedicated, disciplined and committed. All those things give me a lot of pride in looking at and watching and following Jordan Burroughs’ career because it's one thing to be a tremendously talented athlete - that's great and wonderful - but what I appreciate the most about Jordan and take the most pride in is the fact that he's not only a wonderful athlete, but he's tremendously dedicated. He's a very, very hard worker, and he's disciplined and dedicated to his craft and to his sport. That's the only way you can achieve that level of consistency through that kind of an effort. So when you look at somebody like Jordan, you get the satisfaction of 'Hey this guy is a great athlete'. Moreover there's a deep understanding of how dedicated and committed he is, and that creates a lot of pride in Jordan and the University."

Q: Whenyou look at the foundation of Nebraska’s wrestling program, Manning insists you and Jim were catalysts. Can you elaborate?

A: "I think we helped. We certainly contributed to it. Not only winning the NCAA title while we were there, but going on. While we were at the University we were both active in freestyle and Greco-Roman international style wrestling and going on to compete in the Olympics and win World Championships and get an Olympic medal I think helped create and build a presence for the school in the sport and its gone on from there."

Q: In terms of the future of wrestling worldwide, Manning also insists you Scherr twins were a big part of the legacy to get wrestling back on the Olympic priority list. Can you share the highlights of that experience?

"If I look back maybe 20 years from now, 30 years from now, when I'm ready to sort of look back and think about what's been most meaningful to me and maybe most meaningful to the sport in terms of my contributions and my brothers contributions today. Part of my brother’s contribution to the sport is supporting it as the CEO of the Olympic Committee, which he leaned into and helped this sport tremendously in the U.S., and people may or may not understand; he kind of gave it the most favored nation status, if you will, at the U.S. Olympic Committee. A part from that, when I look back, I think the greatest contribution to this sport that I will have made is in the effort to keep wrestling in the Olympic movement and keep it vital.

"When we heard the news a couple of years ago that wrestling was being taken out of the Olympic Games we quickly helped to mobilize a committee that really ended up being part of a global coalition, really leading the coalition, to keep wrestling in the Olympics. We mounted a campaign which resulted within a year with the help of many, many, many people in the U.S. wrestling committee and the global wrestling committee that resulted in wrestling being put back into the Olympic Games. I was the chairman of the committee and was named USA Wrestling Man-of-the-Year in 2014 for my efforts in leading that committee. So I feel very proud and positive about the things that we were able to do and help. Jim, by the way, really came up with the idea for the committee and helped form it and was the co-chairman of the committee and then was employed by the International Wrestling Federation to sort of be a liaison between the International Wrestling Federation and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) as well as our consulting groups that were helping with the campaign.

"Jim was part of the presentation team that made the final presentation in front of the International Olympic Committee in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where we actually secured the vote to put us back into the Games. So both of us being really involved in a successful campaign, preserved the Olympic heritage of the sport we love at the highest level, is something we'll walk away from the sport knowing that we helped contribute to a vital moment in the sport's history. In the thousands of years history of the sport, going back to ancient Greece and up to the hundred-plus years it’s been in the Olympic Games since 1896, the modern Olympic Games, wrestling has been a part of it, and if we wouldn't have been successful in that moment, wrestling would've been out of the Olympic Games for the first time in its history. That would've devastated the sport, in my opinion. So that's the contribution we'll look back on with pride."

Q: Does getting wrestling back into the Olympic Games supersede you and your brother's NCAA championships and Olympic medals?

A: "It really was dependent upon the relationship that my brother and I had with the International Olympic Committee members because of Jim's long, successful tenure as CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and my connections to the International Olympic Committee through the experience I gained as one of the leaders of the Chicago Olympic bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. There were very few people, literally zero people, in the sport of wrestling that had the international connections that Jim and I had, and we were able to leverage and utilize those to help win this campaign to get wrestling back into the Olympic Games. So we were the right people at the right time, and we ended up getting the right results. If you think about contributions to this sport or an achievement within this sport, in my own thoughts and feelings about my involvement in wrestling, I'd certainly put that way above or way ahead of the winning of any medals or anything like that."

Q: The Olympics are big, but what about being the first wrestler to be inducted into the University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame?

A: "It really is amazing because I value, so highly, my time at the University and the athletic department, and the wrestling program meant so much to me. It's a nice validation that I'm remembered this way by something that's so important to me and so important to the University It's an amazing personal and professional honor, and I was tremendously thrilled to hear about."

Q: What was your biggest thrill competing as a Husker?

A: "Winning the NCAA title my senior year with my brother winning his title right before me, so the two of us were able to win NCAA titles in back-to-back matches. That was an amazing night and capped both of our careers off at the University."

Q: What’s your brother Jim doing now?

A: "He's still in Colorado Springs, where he served so long as the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Right now, he's doing consulting work for a sports organization in Colorado Springs.”

Q: What are you doing in Chicago?

A: "I'm a managing director at Barclays (Wealth and Investment Management) and I manage the Chicago office and supervise the western half of the United States for the Barclays Wealth business. It's one of the more respected group of banks with 130,000 employees. It's the fourth or fifth largest bank in the world. I've been with them for almost four years. Previous to that I was with Goldman Sachs for 21 years. That was my first job after college."

Q: Last question. What kind of relationship do you and Jim still have with Mark Manning?

A: "Mark was my brother’s college roommate. We grew up in the same state, and we've known Mark for close to 40 years, so we still really feel connected to the University of Nebraska. There's no place like it."

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