Live from BugahaWest: It was ok, for a half

Dear fellow Husker fans,

At halftime of this past week’s game, the score was reasonable.  In fact, take away the usual Tanner Lee pick 6 and Nebraska is ahead.  Then the second half started and it seemed like Wisconsin made all the halftime adjustments while our beloved Big Red regressed.  Their freshman looked as good as Barkley from PSU.  That kid by himself is going to make the next 3 years rough. But, I don’t really want to cry about the game, I want to look at the pre-game aka the Tunnel Walk with the ’97 team.

1997.  What a year and it’s scary that it has been 20 years.  If you were alive and are old enough you remember where you were for some things.  I was in my university dorm room praying for a miracle the night of Frost to Davison via a flea-kicker.  Folks will remember where they were where a young Scott Frost went on national tv making a case for the Big Red.  That was an amazing, magical year and it deserves to be looked on with high regards along with ’94 an ’95.

I bring up 97 because so much of things I remember in my life have somehow had a way to be related to Nebraska football or sports in general.  The Cubbies won the World Series last year, second best thing of that day considering my extended family welcomed a new member to the Husker clan earlier in the day.  The day Dale Earnhardt Sr died is the first time my wife and I watched a NASCAR race together.  I’ve had family members get married on a Nebraska football Saturday (all the radios afterwards were tuned to the game) and I have had to fly back to Arizona on Nebraska football Saturday after attending my grandmother’s funeral.  That one hurts because that was in 2015.  Earlier that summer the family drove back to Nebraska to see family and when I say family, I mean practically everyone.  It was a good visit because we took our 2 grandsons with to show them off.  Great pictures and great times are the memories.  Little did I know I would be flying back in September to bury one grandma and driving back in December to bury the other grandma.  The burial in September was my mom’s mom and it stunk plenty because that was part of my summers being buried as well as a great night in 1996.  Jan of ’96 and somehow my grandma and I were alone watching the second half of that great game vs Florida.  I don’t even know where the rest of the family was, maybe watching the game in another room, but that’s how it worked.  The scary part, yes we would cheer but there was a peacefulness to that moment.  I don’t want to say I knew it was in the bag, but I knew I was having a special moment and I enjoyed it.

Fasst forward to 2001.  My wife and I were expecting our youngest son and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  He was born before Black Friday 2001, the day Colorado crushed NU.  After I got home from work that day and finding out the final score of the game, my wife handed me our newborn little one.  I had diaper duty and what a way to start to spend time with my son.