Husker Nation is hurting right now. Not only is Nebraska off to its worst start in over 50 years, but the Huskers have managed to lose four games by a combined 11 points and have given up the game winning scores in the final seconds in all of their losses. It has gotten to the point where sportswriters are being forced to find new words to describe the experience, because “Heart breaking,” “gut wrenching,” and “gut punch” have already been used. Many followers of Nebraska football have found themselves wondering at various points of this season, “Why I’m I a Husker fan?” It is a perfectly understandable question, why do members of Husker nation put themselves through the agony of being so close to greatness every year, only to have it ripped away from them in excruciating fashion? I’m not sure if I have a concrete answer for that question, but I’ll give it my best shot.
I was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1993, but moved to a small town called Overton, Nebraska before I turned one year old, and that town of 665 people is where I spent my life growing up. My first Nebraska football memory, heck my first memory period, was on January 2nd, 1998. That night, the #2 Nebraska Cornhuskers took on the #3 Tennessee Volunteers and their star quarterback Peyton Manning. I watched and cheered with my father and brother as the Huskers steamrolled the Volunteers 42-17 and earned a claim of the national title. I didn’t remember the game as much as I remember my dad looking over at me after Scott Frost scored from 9 yards out to put the game away and telling me that, if I worked hard enough, I could be just like Scott Frost. From that point forward, I knew exactly what I wanted to be once I grew up. I wanted to be Nebraska’s starting quarterback. I no longer spent my spare time at home playing on swings or pretending to be a knight or a race car driver. Instead, my spare time was spent pestering my dad to play football with me. We would go over everything – pass routes, throwing motion, how to attack the defensive end when running the triple option. Everything that made Scott Frost great I tried to mimic. Now I wasn’t able to accomplish my goal of being the next Scott Frost, my ceiling as an athlete was at the NAIA level; but Frost and the Cornhuskers gave me my first true purpose in life, something to work for and strive to become, and for that I will always be grateful towards them.
I think that is what makes the relationship between the state of Nebraska and the Cornhusker football team so special. Every year a new crop of Nebraska kids, from big cities in the east like Omaha and Lincoln to small towns in the panhandle like Kimball or Gering, can sit on their mom or dad’s lap on a Saturday afternoon and hear about all the great Huskers who came from the state of Nebraska. They can hear about Johnny Rodgers, the skinny kid from Omaha who won a Heisman and captivated the nation with his punt return against the Sooners in the game of the century. Or they can hear about “Tough Tony” Davis from Tecumseh, who ran for over 2,000 yards for Nebraska on nothing but heart and guts. They can hear about the Makovicka brothers from Brainard, or Terry Connealy from Hyannis, Scott Frost from Wood River, or even Overton’s own Eric Ryan from years past. They get to hear about these men from small towns in the unremarkable state of Nebraska who were able to do remarkable things and beat the Oklahomas, Alabamas, LSUs, and Miamis simply because they never stopped striving to be the best that they could be. That feeling of hope and purpose sticks with those young kids, and they make it their mission to join that elite fraternity of Nebraska legends; and Saturdays become the best day of the week not because of a day off from school, but because its a chance to watch our heroes in action.
The new batch of young Husker fans have plenty of heroes to choose from this season. There is Wood River native and team captain Jack Gangwish, Elkhorn native and leading tackler Chris Weber, Papillion native Dylan Utter, and of course Nebraska’s breakout star Andy Janovich, a native of Gretna. These young men give the kids in towns across the state of Nebraska someone to emulate, a hero in real life and not in a book or on a movie screen. And it gives them something to strive for. That’s why, whether its freezing cold or pouring rain, Nebraska fans will always fill Memorial Stadium to the limit. Because our heroes never give up, and we will never give up on them.
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