THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601040132
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
As I've mentioned at least a time or two, I grew up in Nebraska, where the livin' ain't easy.
It's hot in the summer; 100 degrees in the shade isn't unusual, and there isn't any shade.
It's cold in the winter; 26 degrees below zero the last winter I spent there, and the wind blows always, cutting bare skin like a knife. It snows a lot.
Most young people move out of Nebraska, because it's a bucolic state where there aren't many jobs, and there's not a lot of excitement if you want to live in the fast lane.
After you've talked about the friendly folk who live there, and the clean air and the unlocked doors on many homes, there isn't a lot left to say.
So perhaps you'll forgive us Nebraskans for bragging all week about our football team, and shouting ``We're No. 1'' whenever we see a fellow Cornhusker.
Nebraska, as all intelligent, worldly, sophisticated, decent, law-abiding people know, IS No. 1, the best darn college football team in the universe.
The unbeaten Cornhuskers won the championship of the world last Tuesday night by smashing unbeaten Florida, 62-24, in the Fiesta Bowl.
Victory was especially sweet because our farm boys beat up on those know-it-all city slickers from a state that already has Disney World and orange groves and palm trees and bikinis by the billions.
And as all Nebraskans know, it was the second straight national championship won by whipping a bunch of Florida fancy-pantsers. Last year the Cornhuskers took the title by stopping Miami in the Orange Bowl.
How sweet it is. Fans at ECU and UNC this year know how I feel. And it seems like Nebraskans have had a football team to brag about since they invented the sport. They always pack the stadium in Lincoln, making the big oval the third-largest city in the state. Season tickets are never turned in; they are willed to favorite offspring, often touching off nasty family feuds. Whenever the coach loses a couple of games, those loyal fans start calling for a replacement.
Everybody has a red coat and a red cowboy hat, and many a Nebraskan is lowered into the ground in those blazing colors, so they'll be properly dressed to watch Nebraska play in that big bowl upstairs.
But it wasn't always thus, as a few of us old-timers can recall. When I was a student there way back in the '50s, Saturday games rarely drew more than 25,000 people. You could walk to the ticket counter at kickoff time and get a great seat. I didn't know anybody who had a red hat.
I was in the stadium for the worst day in Nebraska's history, when the Cornhuskers lost to Hawaii, 7-6. Hawaii looked like a high school team, and it was a stunning upset. Nebraska had vacationed in the islands the previous year, had rolled to a lopsided score over Hawaii, and then had been feted by the losers at a fancy poi party. The Cornhuskers invited Hawaii to Lincoln for another whipping, and scheduled a country barbecue party to celebrate.
After Hawaii shocked the state with the upset, the barbecue was the saddest celebration I've ever seen. The publisher of the Omaha World-Herald ordered his sports editor to get Coach Bill Glassford fired, and when the editor refused, the publisher canned the editor.
Glassford eventually went, and so did a handful of others over the next decade until Bob Devaney began the football dynasty that Tom Osborne has continued.
I was long gone from Nebraska when the dynasty developed, so perhaps you'll forgive me this one time if I shout, ``Bring on the Dallas Cowboys!''
Nebraskans don't get many opportunities to boast about their home state. by CNB