Football in Nebraska

Nebraska is known for producing very few things of value: corn, Johnny Carson, corn-fed beef, Kool Aid, corn syrup, the band 311, Dorthy Lynch salad dressing,  Larry the Cable Guy (oh wait… I was mentioning things of value… scratch that), more corn, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  Of course, an athletic director a few years back realized that “Cornhusker” bore a little too close of a resemblance to “corn holer” and, although I believe the official title is still Cornhuskers,  most fans simply refer to them as the “Huskers.”

I want to mention right now that I may be putting my life in danger by writing this post.  If anything happens to me, I hope with all sincerity that someone will look out for my family.  I live in a state where making light jest of something as sacred as the state’s college football team may be considered sacrilege… similar to, say, crapping on the Qur’an in the middle of the Kaaba in Mecca, except I feel the punishment doled-out by the Muslims may be slightly more humane than the torture one would receive from Husker fanatics.

I moved to Nebraska in 1992; this was a move that I never expected to make and that has changed my life (in some cases for the better… in some cases for the worse) in monumental ways.  I had recently graduated from college and was rapidly finding out that a business degree from Montana State University was a pretty worthless piece of paper.   I was working for a relatively-large retailer as a management trainee.  This is back when the first George Bush was President and the job market sucked (job market sucking… uh… deja vu?).  Apparently the Bushes were masters at destroying economies and creating stinking job markets… but I lean right and Lord Obama isn’t exactly working any liberal magic to make things better.

TIME OUT:  As I approach 40, one of the few things I have actually learned in my life is that all politicians of all makes, models, sexes, parties and colors SUCK.  No matter how much wind they blow up your hiney, not one single one of them cares a wit about you, your family, or the general state of the Union.  All they care about is either making a name for themselves in history, the power of office, the celebrity of politics, getting a little quality “cigar” time with portly yet cute interns, or money… or, in many cases, more than one of the above.  In the happy stinking joy that is life, politicians create or support a large portion of the “stink” in all of our lives, and anyone who tells you different (especially if it’s a politician) is full of crap.  The fact that Democrats and Republicans cannot, for the minuscule portion of a millisecond, put aside their stupid differences and do what’s best for the average American ( by the way, the AVERAGE American is just plain-old happy with their current health care coverage… thank you very much… and by average American, I do not mean average illegal alien from any country that is not America; to digress, however,  it should NOT cost thousands of dollars to become a citizen… that’s CRAP… I have a couple of friends that are legal-status-challenged who would LOVE to become citizens, but they just can’t afford it) PROVES that politicians do not care about YOU!  If any politician EVER comes up to you and tells you that he or she has your best interest in mind, he or she is boldly lying to your face (unless you have something he or she wants, like money… but he or she STILL doesn’t care about you, only what he or she WANTS!). Wow… got a little off track with this, didn’t I?  Well, back to the game. RESUME PLAY:

Anywho, when I took my dead-end retail job right out of college, I quickly realized that I was going nowhere… until I received a call from a district manager in Nebraska.  Apparently, there was a store in Scottsbluff, NE that needed an assistant manager… and trainees and full-time employees in Nebraska had no interest in the desolate wasteland that is the panhandle of Nebraska, so the district manager in Nebraska, growing desperate, had started calling district managers in other states until the district manager in Montana finally told him, “Uh, yeah, we got this loser… uh… trainee… who would be great for a store in Nebraska where no one else wants to go.  We were trying to figure out what we were going to do with him… uh… where we were going to place him… and Scottsbluff would be GREAT for him… and us.”

So, never even having given a moments thought to Nebraska, all of a sudden I had a U Haul trailer on the back of my truck and I’m moving to what I think may be the land of milk and honey.  Turns out, I was moving to the land of corn… plain and simple, corn.  This was in September of 1992… 17 years ago… 17 GODFORSAKEN YEARS AGO!!!

I found a crappy little apartment in a scary little neighborhood and I started a life in Nebraska.  One of the first things that I noticed was that, on any given Saturday, the town seemed to semi-cease to exist.  Locally-owned businesses locked their doors.  Every other building, whether house or apartment complex or business, hoisted a flag or a banner or some form of intrusive yard decor advertising allegiance to the University of Nebraska football team.  I was astonished… and a little freaked out.  It seemed the entire community… no, the entire county… no, the entire STATE (with large puss-like pockets of true-Nebraska believers spread throughout the entire nation… if not the world) stopped every meaningful motion of life on Saturday to worship a bunch of kids in polyester and plastic uniforms led by a vegetarian of god-like proportions.  The meatless wonder was a fellow named Tom Osborne, and he was likened to the deity of the one called Bob Devaney, one who the mindless throngs of the Husker Nation call the Holy One.  There is a legacy behind the entire story and history of the Husker Nation; a time-tested fable of generous leadership and outreach across an entire state that has stood the test of time and is worthy… oh, who am I kidding, for crying out loud, it’s a stinking game!  A GAME!  Much like chess, or checkers, or croquet… a game.  And yet, you don’t see throngs of people filling stadiums to watch competing teams play Monopoly… but it’s the same concept: one person (team) using skills of little value in the real-life world that would actually benefit society against another person (team) with similar skills.  People of all walks of life in all areas of the world get all worked up over sports, whether it be football, baseball, soccer or whatever.  These fans live vicariously through the efforts of overpaid athletes, whether  they just like watching a good competition or because they actually have nothing of any interest at all going on in their lives.  Whatever the reason, I think the whole thing is relatively stupid.  Not that I don’t enjoy watching a good game of some sort from time to time… but I don’t obsess.  My entire week isn’t ruined if the Huskers lose.  And in Nebraska, lives are destroyed if the Huskers lose.

Maybe it’s because there are no professional sports teams here, or maybe it’s because eating too much corn makes one insane; whatever the reason, Husker fans are rabid.  Don’t get me wrong, Husker fans are, for the most part, very polite (unlike, say, those semi-tarded Colorado Buffalo fans who key your car in the parking lot if they see license plates from the opposing team’s state.)  Husker fans are not rabid toward the competition.  Husker fans are rabid about… Husker football.  Husker fans will boo their own team if things don’t go well.  Old farmer Bob has all the insight and he’s just positive that if Nebraska brought back the option offense that things would turn around.  And Old Farmer Bob isn’t the only one… EVERY husker fan thinks they have the magic answer that will help the team win.  Retail sales in Nebraska actually slump after a Nebraska loss because, apparently, Husker fans are too depressed to spend money after watching the Blackshirts fail.  Discussion about thoughts on next year’s team begin the second the previous season ends and last right up to… well… next year.  The sad thing is, Nebraska has some other decent sports teams.  The Husker women’s softball team always does extremely well.  The college basketball and baseball teams (with a little support) could do well.  You’d think, with the College World Series being in Omaha, that there would be more fans supporting the baseball team just to see them get some homefield advantage in the Series.  The women’s volleyball team rocks!  But the attention hog of Nebraska is Husker football.

So, once again, we start another football season and, once again, I am not going to go anywhere without hearing every local-yokel’s opinion on the Huskers.  Sunday morning church will be filled with “Wad’ya think of the game?” and all week long it will be “How’ya think they’ll do?”  Honestly, I really don’t care.  I’m from Montana,  so I’m more interested in how the Bobcats did (which is almost always horrible… yet they did kick the crap out of the Colorado Buffs the last time they met 🙂 ) than I am in anything the Huskers do.  However, this is something I mostly keep to myself.  After all, a public beheading at the hands of radical Devaneyists is something I try to avoid.

Yes, living in Nebraska as a person who has neutral feelings towards the Huskers leads to a lonely and secretive life.  My only condolence is the fact that I hate the Colorado Buffs, and the Huskers are going to kick the crap out of the Buffs on Friday, November 27th, which is the day after Thanksgiving and the day before the horrendous atrocity which is to be my 40th birthday.   I don’t expect to win the lottery, I don’t expect to have found any curious fountain of joy, and I don’t expect that my life will have taken a tremendous turn for the better by my 40th birthday… but I do expect that the Nebraska Cornhuskers will have reduced the Colorado Buffalo to the girlish weeping piles of worthless dung that they are… or great and sacred Heavenly Father above… I think I may actually shed a tear if the Huskers lose… nah… the Buffs suck and the Huskers ROCK… am I actually being converted?  Has the fact that the Huskers have one of the most successful walk-on programs of all time (allowing kids from Nowhere, NE to tryout for their favorite team with the hope that they may actually get to live a little bit of the glory… and many actually do!) tainted me?  Do I find it amazing that Bob Devaney actually reached across a state that is severely divided from those in the eastern, more urban, portion of the state that look down on all things rural to those in the western, more rural, portion of the state that are more closely compared to Wyomingites than they are Nebraskans?  Has the fact that Nebraska has won 3 (it should have been 4 if not for bad officiating) Nation Championships since I’ve lived in Nebraska created any sense of wanting to jump on a bandwagon or two?  For crying out loud… I believe I may actually be part of the stinking HUSKER NATION… Lord help me…

GO HUSKERS!!!