The Lady from Fairbury

It’s always fascinating how complete strangers can become best friends in mere minutes when surrounded by a common interest as strong as Nebraska football. Growing up, my parents always had two season tickets. Sitting in those same seats year after year helps you get to know these people.

You don’t always know their name, but you always look forward to hanging out with them every fall.

One such person was the Lady from Fairbury. She was always tickled by the fact that those red Fairbury hot dogs were the official hot dog of Nebraska football. Around 2008, our family season tickets moved to Section16c, Row 88 and we were placed next to the Lady from Fairbury and her husband. I can’t remember her name but she was around 55 years old with silver hair and had the strength of an ox. I know this because immediately after Alex Henery made his go-ahead 57-yard field goal against Colorado in 2008, she scooped up my 8^th grade and 165-pound body and hoisted me high in the air.

*(Over)Dramatic Representation of victory hug from 11/28/08

Her husband never said a word. He never stood up, cheered or booed. He just sat with his eyes forward wearing his radio headset. In case the previous image of a grandma picking up a 14-year-old boy and flinging him around like a ragdoll wasn’t clear enough, the Lady from Fairbury was an avid Husker fan and much more social than her husband.

Like her husband, she wore a radio headset tuned into the game. I always thought that was kind of funny, but in the early days of the Pelini Era, I learned to appreciate it. In those days for some reason they refused to show the replay on the big screen while a play was under video review. I guess they were worried about the home crowd seeing the replay and having a potential influence on the outcome of the review. Since then we’ve learned that the home crowd can in fact see the replay without it leading to anarchy in the streets.

Anyway, in those days you were forced to sit there and wait with your thumb up your butt while the replay officials reviewed the play. So having the ability to have Matt Davison’s voice beamed straight to your head was pretty cool. I frequently relied on the Lady from Fairbury to determine whether a play under review would be reversed or not.

She got to know our family pretty well. Since we only had 2 tickets and 5 members of our family, we would take turns using the tickets. She got to know us so swell that toward the end of the 2011 season she noticed that my mom had stopped attending and asked us why. It broke her heart to hear she had passed away. It was comforting to see she cared that much for my mom, a woman she had only known in the context of Nebraska football. 

In 2013 I went to college and started sitting in the student section. In 2014, our family season tickets moved to the new seats in the East stadium. I'll probably never see the Lady from Fairbury again. That makes me a little sad to think about, but every time I see those Fairbury hot dogs being shot our of a cannon at Memorial Stadium I think about her. My ribs ache a little bit too, remembering the bruises she gave me during the world's most terrifying victory hug.