Back to Main Page <<<>>> Back to Inductees' List Hall of Fame Inductee -- 1994
Jim Hartung
Omaha South

Athlete. Omaha South Class of 1978.  Jim Hartung completed his high school gymnastics career with 18 individual event championships. Hartung won the Nebraska School Activities Association all-around state championship from 1975 to 1977.  Omaha South won the state gymnastics championship each season Hartung competed.

Hartung’s success on the high school level continued in college. At the University of Nebraska, he became only the second person in NCAA men’s gymnastics history to win seven individual titles in a career, including all-around NCAA champion in 1980 and 1981.  He was a record-setting 22-time NCAA All-American.  Nebraska also won team NCAA titles during the Hartung  era.

He achieved a boyhood dream and earned spots on the 1980 and 1984 United States Olympic teams, the latter winning the Gold Medal.

Additionally, after retiring, Jim was a coach with the National Gymnastics Team and served as a gymnastics judge with international credentials.

A Jim Hartung quote:

There have been a lot of highlights, but when I was twelve years old I watched the Olympics and I remember saying to myself, that looks pretty cool, I think I might like to do that. I decided that that was what I was going to do, and from the time I was about 14 or 15 I thought about the Olympics every day of my life.  Those other things, getting married and having kids, they weren’t lifelong goals, I guess I just figured down the road it was something I was going to do, but making the Olympics was something that motivated me every day of my life for a lot of years and I can’t think of anything else that’s made me feel anything like that.