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Was 1951 the Best Birth Year for a Husker Fan?
Commentary
by David Max
July 26, 2010
I received
the following e-mail the other day from Tony Bunting, another Husker fan living
in Chicago.
-Quote -
Hello:
When you are an obsessed Cornhuskers fan, like me, funny Big Red thoughts
enter your mind on a summer afternoon. I figured out that the best possible
year for a Huskers fan (who perhaps attended the University of Nebraska) to
have been born would have been 1951...
...Because that would mean that, when you were 11 years old (a great age for
a young football fan), Devaney took over as head coach and the Cornhuskers immediately
became good again and began their rise to national prominence.
...Because, when you turned 18, it would have been 1969, and if you had gone
to the University of Nebraska, you would have seen firsthand the 1969, 1970,
1971, and 1972 teams in your four years on campus. Two national championships,
four bowl victories.
...Then during your prime adult years (age 22 to 46), you would have seen the
entire Osborne Era.
...And if you had had a kid when you were age 25, which would have been 1976,
and that kid went to the University of Nebraska when he (or she) turned 18,
he (or she) would have seen the 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 teams--three national
championship teams.
...And, finally, if you had been born in 1951, you would still be young enough
to see the rise of the next great era of Nebraska football...The Bo Pelini Years.
Tony Bunting
Chicago, Illinois
-End Quote-
Tony did
not know that I was born in 1951 when he sent me the e-mail and obviously I
couldn't agree more with his assessment. I was 11 years old in 1962 when Bob
Devaney came to town and listened to the games on the radio in Page and later
Ainsworth, Nebraska. After the games during the Page years we would get together
in the open field by the Methodist Church and have our own pick up games pretending
to be Husker greats like Dennis Claridge, Thunder Thornton, Bob Brown, Wayne
Meylan and others.
When I turned
18 in 1969 I chose Kearney State College instead of Lincoln because I had relatives
in Kearney and had visited the campus several times growning up when we visited
them. I did make several games in Lincoln during the 1969 to 1973 as my father
Carl had the foresight to purchase six season tickets when they built the south
end zone in 1964. Looking back I view it as the best of both worlds. Having
the ability to go to the games in Lincoln while getting the personalized smaller
school education at Kearney. I was a student athletic trainer at Kearney and
had the opportunity to be the trainer for the North squad in the 1972 and 1973
Shrine Bowl games. I first met Tom Osborne when he came to practice shortly
after being announced as the successor to Bob Devaney. I was with "Touchdown"
Tommie Heiser who had just arrived in camp when coach came into the training
room. Obviously that meeting had more of an impression on me than it did on
Coach Osborne.
During my
"prime years" I moved to California after graduate school at Indiana
University where I had the opportunity to work with both Lee Corso and Bob Knight
at the other Big Red. Moving to California was somewhat of a culture shock but
the Californians for Nebraska
helped make the transition easier. I was amazed to find the Husker games on
the radio every game day Saturday and actually have it listed in the LA Times
radio/TV log. Early on after I joined the organization I drew the assignment
of "watch site coordinator" and we grew from a single watch site in
Fullerton to several in the LA/Orange County area. Maintaining our nation wide
watch site directory
remains one of my passions. The Tom Osborne era is full of memories both thrilling
and heart breaking and I have shared many of them with other transplanted Nebraskans
living in California. You can take the Husker fan out of Nebraska but you can't
cure the life long illness of being a Husker fan no matter what your geographic
location may be.
Our daughter
Crystal was born in 1977 and like most kids they do things their parents don't
like. In her case she chose going to school in Boulder, Colorado instead of
Lincoln where I was pushing her because she wanted to blaze her own trail. She
even attempted to be a Buffs fan and came to the watch site in Huntington Beach
with a Colorado shirt on but changed to a Nebraska shirt by half time when her
real passion came through. She was one of the few CU students that was a Husker
fan and managed to get through going to school there without getting any tires
slashed. She did attend the '95 and '97 National Championship games with Donna,
Mom and I. Mom and I went solo to the '94 game. One memory about the '94 game
that sticks in my mind is that it was before the cell phone era and we would
stand in line at the pay phone booths at the team hotel after the game to call
family and friends to talk about the game.
I am still
barely on this side of 60 years old and I am looking forward to the continuation
of the Bo Pelini era. It seems like things are coming full circle with the return
of the Nebraska way attitude of hard work and integrity. We know that the product
going out on the field this fall and in the future will consist of players that
consider it a privilege to be a Husker and will give 100% on the field. We may
not win every game but we will go into each game with the expectation of winning
which has not been there in the not so distant past. I am proud of the current
state of the Nebraska football progam and look forward to the next chapter as
we enter the Big 10 Conference. It will be nice to be a part of the generation
that transcended from Bob Devaney to the Big 10. Yes, it is great to be a Husker
fan no matter what year you were born.
Just my
2 cents. What about yours?
Selected responses will be added to this article. Here is the BBS
feedback.
GO
BIG RED!!!
E-mail
feedback:
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David,
I
agree with your article except for this minor detail. I was born in 1950. If
you recall we exchanged e-mails just shortly after your dust up with huskerpedia
and forming HuskerMax. I see things are progressing nicely. You may also recall
from our previous e-mails I have spent the last 20 years in the Pacific NW,
Olympia, WA to be exact. In that period my two oldest sons went through their
high school years here and my youngest his entire school experience. I am also
currently a guardian parent of a high school junior who has been with us the
past 4 years. My second son went to Lincoln and ended staying in Nebraska. Two
weeks back he called his mother and told her, “Mom, I don’t think
I’ll ever move away again.” All of them are Husker loyalists and
proud to wear their Husker gear anywhere in this state. In fact, Frank, my guardian
son is the go to kid if we need an informational detail about any of the Huskers,
and that includes, basketball, baseball, volley ball, etc. Hard to keep him
off the HuskerMax website. Now my three grandsons are wearing the “Red.”
I did my job!!
My
first experience and where I got hooked on the Big Red was in the Gotham Bowl
in ’62, you may recall NU-36, Miami-34. Yeah a great time period to live
through. We’ve seen a lotta Husker history being made and it appears Bo
will add to the legacy.
Good
luck and great job on HuskerMax.
Pete
R
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Born in 1951..went to Wahoo NE to the old JFK College in 1969 and attended my
first Husker games that fall. Coming from NY, I had no idea what real college
football was like until I went to a game in Lincoln . Have been a die hard Big
Red fan ever since and have returned several times to games over the years.
Like you, my son has gone to the dark side and is a Texas fan but he will see
the light someday!!! Now that I live in Central OH I can hardly wait until the
first Husker/Buckeye game. I’ve been telling folks in these parts bout
Big Red Nation for a long time and now they will get to see it for themselves!!!
Rick
F
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