Friday, February 13, 2009

The Skers


So its February and I'm already thinking about Fall Football, and when I say that, I mean college football and more precisly Nebraska Football.

The college football season is really too short, it almost makes it seem like there is nothing on TV for like 7 months, and frankly that is just too long...

Growing up in Nebraska it is hard to not be a supporter of the Husker Nation. Especially when your family are such huge fans. Almost every little boy grows up wanting to someday put on the scarlet and cream and come out of the tunnel greeted by a sea of red on Saturday in Memorial Stadium.

Memorial Stadium, they say if it were a city, would be the third largest in the state on game day. The stadium holds an ongoing NCAA-record 297 consecutive sellout crowds; this streak began in 1962. On September 27, 2008, a Memorial Stadium record crowd of 85,831 watched Nebraska play Virginia Tech.

Inscribed on the four corners of the stadium are the following words, written by former Nebraska professor of philosophy Hartley Burr Alexander:

Southeast: "In Commemoration of the men of Nebraska who served and fell in the Nation's Wars." 
Southwest: "Not the victory but the action; Not the goal but the game; In the deed the glory." 
Northwest: "Courage; Generosity; Fairness; Honor; In these are the true awards of manly sport." 
Northeast: "Their Lives they held their country's trust; They kept its faith; They died its heroes." 

A statue of Nebraska coach Tom Osborne (now the school's athletic director) and former Nebraska quarterback Brook Berringer can be found outside the north side of the stadium.

Berringer was a quarterback on Nebraska's 1994 and 1995 national championship teams who died in a plane crash in April 1996, just two days before the 1996 NFL Draft where he was expected to be an early/middle round pick. -Tid Bits I found on Wikipedia.

I have only been to Memorial Stadium once in my whole life, I watched the Huskers trounce Iowa State. There is no way to describe the excitement I felt watching them play live for the first time. It will always be a great memory.

I've gone to 3 games, but only once in Licoln. I watched the Skers beat up on Kansas (in their Memorial Stadium) Where the Sea of Red traveled to Lawerence, one thing about the Husker Nations is they travel well. And then I went to my first Bowl Game as I watched the Huskers lose to Auburn in the Cotton Bowl. Stupid Callahan...as a fan I'm going to try to block out the Callahan years, and hope that the Pelini years are more fun and victorious.

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