He posted a 76-34-1 high school coaching record. His final years of high school coaching were in McCook before he sold everything, including his house, to become a grad assistant at Nebraska in 1974. He was promoted to full-time by Tom Osborne in 1979.

"I hired three high school coaches — Milt at McCook, Frank Solich at Lincoln Southeast and Dan Young at Omaha Westside — as grad assistants, and they left good jobs and made big sacrifices to come to Nebraska," Osborne told the Journal Star on Monday. "Milt was one of the main reasons we had good offensive lines after good offensive lines every year."

While he rose to be a giant in his profession, Tenopir just as fondly recalled when he was an up-and-comer in Lincoln. He remembered getting about $1,000 his first year as a grad assistant. He also drove a dump truck in the day and painted houses at night. "It was a good year, though," he quipped. "I bought my kids 10-speed bikes, I remember that."

Tenopir always credited the late Dan Young, who died in 2010, with equal billing for the offensive line production that dominated the nation year after year. The two coached together 19 years.

Tenopir once said, "Everybody says ‘Milt did this and Milt did that,' and it wasn’t Milt Tenopir. It was Milt Tenopir and Dan Young."