“No matter where life takes me, I will always be proud to be a Husker,” said the Nebraska senior after the Big Red’s senior night. In a meet on March 21st, the Big Red men’s gymnastics team fell to Michigan State by 335.200-335.950, but it wasn’t just them who fell that night. One of their seniors did not perform on a senior night in front of the Devaney Center home crowd, and he might never again. Why?

“Thank you, gymnastics“, Zac Tiderman wrote as he uploaded a video to his Instagram on March 31st, 2025. Feels it isn’t just the month of March that he is saying his goodbye to. He continued, “On February 3rd, during practice, I fully ruptured my Achilles tendon on the takeoff of a floor dismount. Within minutes, I felt a deep sadness set in. I knew that would be my last practice. Just two days earlier, I unknowingly competed in my final competition.”

In this retirement post, he talked of the video he was posting, which was “a compilation of some of the best moments from my time at Nebraska.” It was hard for him to put into words what the sport meant to him, but he hoped “this gives a glimpse into the passion, dedication, and love I’ve poured into it over the 15 some years.” Any devout Tiderman fan would cry watching the video, as it featured some of his best performances on the bar. It even had him posing with the NCAA honors he received last year.

Next was the time for him to say his thanks. He began with his family. “From the very beginning, I’ve been surrounded by incredible people who believed in me, even when the odds were stacked against me. To my family, thank you for your endless love, sacrifices, and support through every high and low.” Next were the coaches, the staff, and his teammates. He thanked them for pushing him, believing in him, and treating him like family. As he said, “You helped shape not only the athlete I became but the person I am today.“

And to end it all with a note to the fans and friends, he mentioned, “To the friends, fans, and mentors I’ve met along the way, whether in the gym, on the road, or in the stands, thank you for being a part of this journey. Your encouragement has meant more than you know.“

Zac was an emotional rollercoaster as he wrote this post, talking about what the sport meant to him. He said, “Gymnastics gave me more than medals or trophies.” The cornhusker believed that the sport gave him ever-lasting memories, a purpose, and a community. He further talks of how hard the sport was for him, but eventually, that was the part of it he fell in love with: “The grind. The setbacks. The pressure. I learned to embrace the hardship, rise through the challenges, and find meaning even in the toughest moments.”

Zac began in 2021 at the University of Iowa and then transferred to Nebraska. In these four years, he had the chance to get NCAA All-America honors, also a CGA Regular-Season All-American on high bar, a Big Ten Specialist of the Week, and set the school record on a high bar with a 14.65 against Army and Greenville. Outside of the gym, Tiderman earned Academic All-Big Ten honors and was named to the Tom Osborne Citizenship team.

“To what comes next. -Z.” And with that, Zac said his goodbye, crediting Izzy Pineda, Associate Director of Creative & Emerging Media at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the video. How did he come to Nebraska in the first place, though?

How did Zac end up with Nebraska Gymnastics?

Zac, when young, was a part of Omega Gymnastics. Then in 2021, he joined Iowa State’s men’s gymnastics team. He stayed with them for the whole of 2022 as well before the university decided to cut men’s gymnastics from their program. Zac remembers the day the news was broken to him.

“Something’s not right here,” he recalled thinking as sat in a room where the young athletes stared at each other with no athletic department officials in the room. Then came in athletics director Gary Barta. He announced that though these sports will compete in the 2020-2021 season, they would be history after that. He encouraged the students who wanted to play at the NCCA level to apply for a transfer while promising scholarships to those who stayed back at the university.

“It was just sad, I mean everyone was crying,” Tiderman said. “Hopes and dreams were crushed in a matter of minutes, and you were just left there to deal with it.” Iowa had to take this drastic measure for austere budgeting but Zac, determined to stay at Iowa, decided to compete in GymACT, a separate non-university league. Though he won the league, his heart ached for the Division I team and the rest is history: he soon found himself with Huskers.