photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World photo

Gary Tanner, his wife, Jane, and their son, Brady, stand outside their home near Haskell Indian Nations University. Gary Tanner retired this month after a nearly four decade career in Haskell's athletic department.

Ask Gary Tanner what the best part of a nearly four-decade career with Haskell Indian Nations University has been, and he’ll give you a simple answer: the memories.

Tanner retired Jan. 1 after 37 years with Haskell’s athletic department, ending a run in which he’d coached every sport but basketball and served as interim athletic director for a number of years. In his stead, Haskell faculty member Judith Gipp — who previously served as athletic director — has taken on the role of acting athletic director.

In the weeks since his retirement, Tanner said he’s been enjoying spending his time however he sees fit. Mostly that has included trying to sleep in and spending time with his family. It’s been what he thought it would be, he said, besides the cold weather keeping him away from some outdoor projects on his to-do list.

But he’s also been combing through 37 years worth of photos, plaques and documents that had been stored in boxes at his campus office — a process that has brought a lot of treasured memories bubbling to the surface.

“After 30 years, I had quite a few boxes,” Tanner said. “… You always remember the highlights of a season, a career, those types of things. But some of the things that weren’t highlights but were real memorable I had forgotten, and as I went through these pictures and articles, it’s just jumping right back up at me. That’s something that kind of humbles me a little bit.”

Tanner, a member of the Cherokee Tribe, said he takes pride in having done a lot of “great things” during his time at Haskell — helping to turn the football program from a struggling outfit to a competitive one on a limited budget, learning soccer from the ground up before he coached the team, and even coaching the children of some of his former athletes as they’ve grown older and started families.

“One of the things that I’ve always went by is you always leave a program better than how you found it,” Tanner said.

He described “battling” for resources for the softball teams he coached, and now he’s leaving that program behind with more than it had when he started.

The time was right to call it a career, he said, adding that he felt he’d done everything he could do at Haskell and it was time to let someone else have a shot.

The Tanner family’s path to Haskell began decades ago in Oklahoma and culminated in their having a house in the Haskell’s “backyard,” close enough for Tanner to visit his athletes at their dorm.

After graduating from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma, Tanner wanted to be a wrestling coach. He got a job at a high school, where he found success, and jumped to another school from there to start a wrestling program from scratch. That was followed by a job at a school in suburban Tulsa.

That’s where Haskell came knocking. One of Tanner’s old football coaches showed up one day to let him know about an assistant coach opening. The only catch was it was a one-year position that came with a pay cut.

Taking it was a no-brainer, Tanner said.

“Been here ever since, never looked back,” Tanner said. “There’s so many other things besides money to make somebody happy.”

For Tanner, a driving force on that front was his son, Brady.

Brady is a longtime Special Olympics participant who earned gold medals in weight-lifting with Team USA at the world games in 2011 and was inducted into Special Olympics Kansas’ hall of fame in 2018. The family had heard Kansas had a good program for Brady to get involved in through the school system, so it was an enticing option. Those opportunities paid off, and Brady, too, has never looked back, Tanner said.

Tanner and his wife, Jane — “the person who made it all happen,” he said — trained Brady themselves as he aspired to be a power lifter.

“We could have a new pickup, we could have a new car, we could have a new house,” Tanner said. “But what we did is we bought memories, if you want to look at it like that. And that’s kind of the same thing as at Haskell. I felt like we made a lot of memories, even if we didn’t buy them.”

The Tanners also have two daughters and grandchildren nearby.

Though Tanner didn’t express any regrets about retiring, he did say that he wished Haskell had found a permanent president before he left. Haskell’s most recent president was removed from office in May 2021 after just a year in the office, following a unanimous vote of no confidence by Haskell’s Faculty Senate.

Tanner said he would’ve liked to have been able to work with a new president to provide some insights and direction for Haskell’s athletics.

Above all, he said he simply hoped that he had made a positive impact over the years. Haskell felt like a family, he said, and he also has a fondness for the Lawrence community. Moving forward, he hopes to see an expanded relationship between the city and the university.

“I wish maybe there could be a better connection between the Lawrence community and Haskell, to where they could help each other,” Tanner said. “I think both sides have things to give, things to offer the other side, that would be helpful.”