Growing up in the Post Championship Era: The Art of Sitting Through Bad Football

All I wanted was those damn nachos.

My parents, worn down by my crying, worn down by the throat stomping the Miami Hurricanes had given us, finally relented at halftime. As the final 30 minutes of Nebraska’s most recent National Championship appearance kicked off, I was happily crunching on crispy round tortilla chips dipped in gooey industrial strength nacho cheese while the rest of Husker nation was foaming at the mouth on that night of January 3^rd, 2002. 

At the time, Nebraska had only ever lost 10 games in my 7 years of life. Yeah, they were about to suffer loss #11, but I wasn't worried. Nebraska was going to be elite as long as the Pope remained Catholic, right?

Turns out I grew up in that brief nexus of time in which I could faintly remember Nebraska’s glory years, just enough to get me hooked, but was then forced by the ATHLETIC DIRECTOR WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED to grow up watching the Callahan Era. I just barely missed the bus and it hurts all the more because I could still see it driving away. Pelini briefly provided a last push to make my childhood Husker memories worth remembering, but he too fell short. Aside from the fleeting, wispy memories in the early days of my life, I’ve only ever seen a lot of bad football.

If I could go back in time and strap the AD WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED into a chair and force him to watch games from the Callahan era and even the subsequent years to make him realize what he was about to do to the program I would. Unfortunately, the time machine I invented out of cardboard and aluminum foil when I was 6 only runs on Krabby Patties.

A slight oversight on my part, I must admit.

Should probably also stop Hitler, right?

So I've sat through a lot of bad losses and over the course of time I grew to be a lot more like my parents than the 7 year-old stuffing his face full of nachos at the Rose Bowl. I've yelled at the TV, ranted online and questioned why this is such a big part of my life many times. It got to the point in middle school where I was embarrassed to be a Nebraska fan even though 95% of the kids around me were fans too. These were formative years for any sports fan and I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a Nebraska fan anymore. 

Seeing kids from school at a Nebraska game in 2007 was kind of like running into them at a nudist colony. Yeah, we're all there together and we're all aware of each other's presence, but no one dared talk about or acknowledge we were even there the following Monday at school.

(Oh, you say you and your friends didn't hit up the local nudist colony after school? Liars...)

This angst almost made me miss out on my small role in the Jim Carrey movie Yes Man. On October 13th, 2007, eleven years ago tomorrow, I woke up pissed at the world and not wanting to roll out of bed for the 11 am kickoff against Oklahoma State. It was my turn to use one of the sacred family season tickets.

But I was done. 

This scrap of paper that was included in the wills of the deceased, this little stub that was fought over in divorces meant nothing to me!

I knew we were going to get killed and I didn't want to waste my entire Saturday riding in a car for over an hour to go to Lincoln, sit through a cold, horrible loss and then have to ride all the way back. There were video games to be played.  

I'm not sure how, but an hour later I was bundled into the SUV and on my way to Lincoln with my mom. The game turned out to be just as bad as I predicted. I had a horrible time. Nebraska didn't even pick up a first down until the 2nd half. To this day it remains the hardest game I ever sat all the way through, meaning I got to go home and lay the world's biggest I TOLD YOU SO on my dad. 

But he told me that wasn't the point. He told me we're Nebraska fans. We show up and stay until the end no matter what. That's what we do. 

I told him tons of Nebraska fans left the game early. He then asked if that's who I wanted to be. The kind of fan who jumps off at the first sign of trouble and then has the gall to to turn up again when things get better. 

I don't remember how I felt about about that talk at the time, but a few days later the AD WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED was fired and Osborne was brought in as AD. Bo Pelini, a guy with a funny name who I remembered from a few years prior, was quickly named head coach after the season. 2008 ended up being one of the most fun football seasons I can ever remember. 

It got better. 

Not as good as well all wanted it to get, but Bo Pelini almost ascending the mountain instilled in me an unshakable belief that yes, Nebraska can still be a power in the 21st Century even if Nebraska's administration is sometimes hell-bent on repeating the mistakes of the past. 

It's what's helped me sit through countless blow out losses over the course of the Pelini & Riley Eras without turning the game off early. 

Someday we'll get there and I think the pieces are all finally in place for that to happen. That's why I haven't been angry watching the losses pile up this year. Disappointed? Yes. I've already admitted that even I underestimated how big of a mess this is to clean up, but I'm confident this will all be in the rear view mirror soon enough. 

It's a period in time that I or someone else ten years from now will look back on and blog about. One last lesson about never giving up on your team & not taking winning for granted. 

*Oh and that role in Yes Man? Well it turns out the film crew was in Lincoln for that 2007 Oklahoma State game to shoot the scene in which Jim Carrey goes to a Nebraska game. In the film they show an aerial shot of Memorial Stadium meaning that yes, I was technically in the film and now own the world's cheapest and most misleading "Truth" for the game 2 Truths and a Lie.