300 sellouts a streak for the fans
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By BRIAN ROSENTHAL and BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
The 90-year-old woman was asked why she still did it.
After all, it’s no small chore for the woman to get to the stadium on Vine Street. Betty Graham lives in Wichita, Kan. To see her Huskers, a flight is required, then a van ride to Memorial Stadium, then a wheelchair ride with the help of one of her sons, then an elevator ride inside the stadium.
She makes the walk from there, up that ramp, to those seats, those same seats that have been in her family for 86 years.
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Gate 6, Section 26, Row 31, Seats 15 and 16.
“Until I die,” she said of how long this routine will last.
She grew up in Omaha. Dad was the biggest of fans and took her to the first game at Memorial Stadium in 1923. Yes, the very first one. Betty was given a coloring book to appease her.
It didn’t take long before those games on the field were much more interesting than a pack of crayons.
“We sat through wind, rain and snow,” Betty said. “One time the announcer said it was not a day fit for man nor beast.”
Maybe some beasts ran for shelter, but the Grahams stayed and watched the game.
That’s just what you do here. This is Nebraska.
So ask again. Why does the 90-year-old still do it? Why will she be there again Saturday?
“It’s loyalty, it’s the kind of people that live there,” she said.
“It’s in your blood.”
Caramel apples
How could you fathom then what we celebrate this weekend?
Three-hundred straight Husker football sellouts. Ten presidents have been in the Oval Office in that span. You’ve met The Beatles. You’ve seen a man on the moon. You’ve purchased a disco ball. You’ve wondered who shot J.R. You’ve worn stonewashed jeans. You’ve burned the photos of you in those jeans. You’ve worried about Y2K. You’ve laughed about Y2K. You’ve cried when the two towers fell and the world changed.
You’ve kept coming to that stadium. Seen the glory, seen the pain, seen the sleet, seen the rain.
A few heartaches. A few cuss words. So many wins. So many memories.
Allen Dayton remembers the caramel apples.
The boys knew a good deal when they saw it. Fifty cents. That’s what it cost to sit in Memorial Stadium’s “knothole section” when this unbelievable streak began in 1962.
Dayton was 13, a knothole regular. “Just raised hell. It was a lot of fun.”
The boys in the knothole section would bring their own footballs to play games at halftime. They’d buy caramel apples. “Then you’d eat it to the core and when the band came out you’d throw it at the band,” said Dayton, now a 62-year-old investor who is among the trustees for the University of Nebraska Foundation.
Dayton was there at the streak’s beginning. Tough loss to the Tigers. The only Big Red score came on an 88-yard interception return by Noel Martin.
Forty-seven years later and Dayton can still picture that touchdown. He remembers Martin’s score because of this: “There was a guy in a suit and a raincoat who ran with him.”
The fans and this team have been running together ever since.
Love story
He grew up in Virginia. ACC country. Basketball country.
Work took him to Omaha. It’s a good thing, because that’s where she was.
His name was Milton. Her name was Ann. Ann had a beautiful smile and Milton was no dummy. He asked her out on a date.
He’ll never forget that first date. Memorial Stadium was the setting. Oklahoma State had Barry Sanders, but Nebraska had more. A 63-42 win.
Soon he was hooked on the Huskers and the girl. Yes, definitely the girl.
There was marriage and a wonderful son, Jackson. They kept going to Husker games, of course.
There were so many pregame rituals they relished. They enjoyed watching the marching band run onto the field and the goose bumps that came when they played “There is No Place Like Nebraska.” They loved the Tunnel Walk.
Then in December of 2007, Ann was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She fought with all she had, but the chemotherapy was not enough. Ann passed away in February this year.
It was tough when 51-year-old Milton Godwin went to the first game this year. He felt sad and empty without his best friend.
But as this week’s game approached, he remembered all those amazing moments. He thinks of when he and Ann saw the 200th straight sellout in 1994. So many great Saturdays.
And here comes another one. He’s taking his 7-year-old son to No. 300.
“We will miss her, but we will do what she would want us to do,” Milton writes.
He finishes his letter in red letters: “Cheer for Big Red!!”
Applause in defeat
The game ended in despair, the Huskers fumbling on the 3-yard line in the final seconds.
A bitter 18-14 defeat, but still, Husker fans applauded the victors as they left the field, a long-standing tradition at Memorial Stadium. Clap for the foe even if they made you cry.
The coach of that visiting team was so touched he wrote a letter to Nebraska’s major newspapers. It was published on Oct. 8, 1980, just four days after the game.
Gentlemen:
I have been coaching college football the past 28 years and have played before some great crowds in this country. I have never seen people with more class than I saw at Nebraska last week. The Nebraska fans, players, cheerleaders, band, officials, coaches, etc., gave me a living testimony of what college football should be all about.
I actually had the feeling that when we upset the Nebraska team, that instead of hate and spite the Nebraska fans thanked us for coming to Lincoln and putting on a good show. This is nearly unheard of in today’s society. Nebraska, you are a great example for Americans to copy. I hope we show half the class your people do.
Sincerely,
Bobby Bowden
Head football coach
Florida State University
Snowmen
The streak has remained despite Mother Nature’s attempts to break it.
Rain. Snow. The kind of cold fit for penguins.
There was even a lightning strike that delayed Nebraska’s 1991 season opener against Utah State for 19 minutes.
Perhaps most memorable is “the blizzard game” of Nov. 1, 1986. A few inches of snow fell as Nebraska played Kansas State.
Fans made snowmen. Players slipped and slipped some more. Tom Osborne called it “the worst playing conditions” he’d seen in his coaching profession. And Bill Shepard stole the show.
The longtime Nebraska grounds manager drove onto the field at halftime in a Kubota tractor with a blade and cleared the field. Halftime was extended by 20 minutes. The band played from the stands.
Despite the snow, almost 76,000 people showed up, though more than half decided to head home by the fourth quarter with the Huskers dominating.
Fans still remember the red hat with white polka dots Shepard wore, the hat he’s seemingly always worn.
He still has it on his head as you talk to him these 23 years later.
“If I take this hat off, I can walk anywhere I want,” Shepard said. “With it on, they say, ‘Hey, there’s that guy.’”
The Clash
You can’t talk about this streak without mentioning the Sooners.
Games against Oklahoma have elicited a wide range of emotion — jubilation, mayhem, disbelief. Uncertainty and sorrow, when the teams played a day after John Kennedy’s assassination. Anger and disgust after Bill Callahan’s perceived throat slash.
No series has been harder on the goalposts. They fell in 1978, after Tom Osborne’s first victory in six tries against OU. They didn’t stand a chance when students swarmed the field in 1982, after Scott Strasburger’s interception with 26 seconds left sealed a victory.
And there was Sooner revenge.
There was a debilitating facemask penalty, all red uniforms and a Keith Jackson catch — all part of Sooner Magic in 1986. Oklahoma returned to Lincoln in 1987 — remember the Game of the Century II? — and stomped on Husker hearts.
But the Sooners didn’t win in Lincoln again for another 18 years. Nebraska is 11-9 at home against OU during the sellout streak.
Ask Husker fans to name their favorite win in the sellout streak and they might point to 1978, when Oklahoma’s Billy Sims fumbled on the 3-yard line and the stadium shook.
Or they might say 2001, when Nebraska took down the Sooners on a trick play, a pass from freshman Mike Stuntz — lined up as a wide receiver — to quarterback Eric Crouch. The result was a 63-yard touchdown, a major Heisman Trophy statement for Crouch and bedlam in the stands.
As the final seconds ticked away, a chant rained down over and over again: “We’re No. 1 ... We’re No. 1 ... We’re No. 1.”
They were speaking for their team, but they could just as well have been speaking for themselves.
This is a streak that belongs to the fans, created by the loyalty of those like 90-year-old Betty Graham, those like Milton and Ann, those kids with the caramel apples.
The fans kept filling the place even when there was a blizzard, even during a 5-7 season. And they clapped for the foe at game’s end no matter what the scoreboard read.
Bo Pelini is in just his second year as Nebraska head coach, but he already knows about the magic on Vine Street.
“It’s something to be proud of that opposing teams, opposing coaches, everybody comes out of here saying, ‘Wow, it’s different here than any place else.’”
Reach Brian Christopherson at bchristopherson@journalstar.com or 473-7439.
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