Nebraska, 1983
• 1981 Academic All-America® First Team
• 1982 Academic All-America® First Team
Dave Rimington was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame in 2004.
Born and raised in Omaha, NE, Dave Rimington always knew that he wanted to play football for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Rimington was a standout offensive lineman while at Omaha South High School. After the first game of his senior season in high school, Nebraska coach Tom Osborne offered Rimington a scholarship to suit up for the Cornhuskers. Playing football at Nebraska was a dream come true for Rimington, but it was not always an easy journey. He re-aggravated an old high school injury to his knee early in his freshman season and was forced to miss the rest of the year. He never had the ligament properly fixed, but was back on the gridiron the next year playing center. Rimington’s junior season when Nebraska reached the national championship game was his breakthrough year. He was named an All-American and received the Outland Trophy, awarded to the nation’s best interior lineman.
During his senior season Rimington was an exemplary leader for the Cornhusker offense. He repeated as the winner of the Outland Trophy, the only player in history to win the award twice, finished fifth in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy, and became the nation’s first and only center to be awarded the Lombardi Trophy, which is given to the nation’s best lineman.
Rimington received a B.A. in economics from Nebraska in 1983. He was also the recipient of several other prestigious awards following his senior season. In 1982, he was one of the NCAA Top Ten Student Athletes, the All-American Center, and a recipient of an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship.
Rimington continued his football career in the NFL. He played for the Cincinnati Bengals and the Philadelphia Eagles before retiring in 1990. After leaving the NFL he was the assistant coach at Wisconsin where he also earned a graduate degree in international business. Rimington lived in New York with his wife, Lisa, and their three children and served as the President of the Boomer Esiason Foundation for cystic fibrosis research.
Rimington, who many consider to be the best college lineman of all time, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997 and his No. 50 jersey was retired by the Cornhuskers. He was a two-time All-American.