Observations, tales from Nebraska football’s fan day

His fellow defensive backs, sitting along a wooden table that stretched nearly the width of the indoor practice field at Hawks Championship Center, laughed. On the other side of the table, Lincoln attorney Paul Rea snapped a photo of Buford, holding out Rea’s masterpiece, with his digital camera.

Rea has spent the past three years designing and commissioning a shield he wants Nebraska to use as a turnover prop. The end result was plastic and triangular with a few extra ridges around metallic silver and gold exterior. A small Nebraska logo sat at the top of the facing. Black lettering along a gray background spelled out BLACKSHIRTS below it. The main visual element was a skull in the center, complemented by anatomically correct crossbones — ulna bones, not femurs like a typical Blackshirt logo.

Above the skull begins a motto, “They cannot win,” continued below the bones, “Who cannot score.”

“Which I think is just the most badass thing a defensive player can shout out to the world,” Rea said. “And my idea is that, as Miami has a turnover chain that’s egotistical, self-aggrandizement, how about instead we have a turnover shield at Nebraska and have all 11 defenders that were on the field come to the sideline and hold up the shield and shout out, ‘They cannot win who cannot score.’”

Saturday was Nebraska football’s annual fan day. Players spent 90 minutes signing autographs for fans who gathered outside the facility in a line that stretched across the parking lot and around the building. On the practice fields, players were organized by position with lines of fans of varying length running parallel to the tables.

Rea’s goal was to take a picture of every defensive player holding the shield with the hope that someone would be interested enough in getting it to the sideline of Memorial Stadium.

“Even if they don’t, I’ve got something that’s the best man cave hangup you’ll ever see,” Rea said.

On the other side of the field, 12-year-old Connor Raastad strummed away at a dark red and white guitar, the opening riff of Sweet Child ‘O Mine. Quarterback Dylan Raiola, who had signed the instrument seconds earlier, watched.

Raastad has been playing guitar since he was 5 years old. He loves Guns ‘n Roses, Green Day and Nebraska football. To bring the guitar, which he strums before every game for good luck, felt like the natural combination of his passions. It also fit into his and his brother Brody’s yearly goal of bringing unusual items for the Huskers to sign.

Brody, wearing a white jersey over shoulder pads, brought an inflatable tackling dummy, which drew a reaction from the linebackers and was covered in signatures by the end of the event. Quarterbacks told Connor walk-on freshman Bode Soukup had played a similar guitar at the freshman talent show the night before.

“I’ve had a bunch of people come up to me,” Connor said. “It’s fun. The Huskers always have a great attitude and stuff, so they’re always nice about it.”