Long time Husker fan who is living large right now!

[bkamler]

My wife and I share season tickets with another couple and yesterday was their turn to have tickets, so I went to buy a single ticket and was about ready to leave to watch it at home as there were numerous people looking for tickets and no one selling anywhere! Right when I was about to leave, a man with his wife and daughter asked if I just needed one ticket and I said yes. He said he was buying them from a scalper and he was paying $60 each for four tickets. He asked if I would pay $50 and I swallowed hard and said yes. This was the best $50 I ever spent!

 

Let me back up quite a ways. The first time I remember Nebraska basketball was in 1958 when I was 8 years old. They played in the old Coliseum. The game I remember best was December 12, 1964. Number 1 Michigan U. came into town and they had Cazzie Russell. They finished the year second to UCLA. Nebraska finished the season 10-15 overall with a 5 and 9 record in the Big Eight.

 

My dad and I sat in the very last row up at the top of the Coliseum. The only lights in the place were over the court and there was a thick haze of cigarette smoke in the building that you had to look through. As I recall, MU led from the very beginning but only by one, two or three points, never more. There was almost no room for the players to inbound the pass on the sidelines and NU fans were pulling the leg hairs of the MU players when they would inbound the ball and that caused more than one turnover during the game.

 

Cazzie Russell had scored 29 points (he averaged 31 for the year) and MU had a 1 point lead with just seconds to go. Fred Hare, a great but troubled baller from Omaha Tech got the rebound and dribbled the length of the court and put up a 15 footer that bounced around the rim and out. However he was able to rebound it three feet from the basket with his back to the basket and he threw it up over his head facing directly away from the basket over Oliver Darden who I believe who was 6'7. Hare was 6'1. The ball bounced on the front of the rim and then hit the back board and dropped in as the gun sounded in what has been called one of the greatest upsets in college basketball. Hare got kicked off the team and ended up playing for the University of Mexico, not "New Mexico", but Mexico the country for many years. I believe he was paid a tidy sum to play for them.

 

I tell you this because there hasn't been much to cheer about other than a year or two when Danny Nee was here but I have been a fanatical fan for 56 years. I went to Denver University to play D1 baseball and ended up living in Denver for six more years after I graduated. While there, I lived with two other high school buddies who were just as loyal NU football, baseball and basketball fans as I was. We would all get in my 68 GTO with a case of adult beverages and drive about 60 miles east out of Denver at around 5:30 at night on week nights until we could catch the KFAB signal. And we had to keep driving east to keep getting the signal. One night we ended up in Kansas by the time the game was over. We did this even in snow storms. God, we were stupid but dedicated Husker fans all the same! We went to every NU-CU game in Boulder and we usually won those games even when we were not very good.

 

I tell you this because I have suffered through disappointing season after disappointing season as a Husker fan and my four children have now suffered through a couple of decades of crappy basketball to and we are finally able to hold our head up high and enjoy the rewards of better recruiting, better facilities and better coaching!

 

When Petteway hit that running four foot shot off the backboard with his left hand against Purdue like it was nothing and when we had two alley oop dunks and when Bennie tied up Hammons twice and when Rivers swatted 3 or 4 of their shots away I had to almost pinch myself to see if I was dreaming.

 

This team really plays for each other. One of my co-workers has a friend who is a professor at CSU where Miles was coaching and he said that there are quite a few CSU fans that are Husker basketball fans because they live Tim Miles and what he did while there. We need to keep him happy here at good ol UNL!

 

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[AuroranHusker]

Love the word-picture you painted.  Awesome read, bkamler!  Lots of long-suffering Husker fanatics are lovin' it w/ you. GBR

[cipsucks]

Bkamler, thanks for sharing.  A lot of us have been waiting a long time for this.

[Silverbacked1]

Yep.

[Shuttlesworth]

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing!

[bkamler]

It was my pleasure to share my love of all things Husker with you guys!

[Slammin1]

Right there with you bkamler. Thanks for putting it into words so well!

[HB]

Damn, Kamler, you are even older than me.  But not as old as Jimmy!  Great stuff; I can relate, but missed the first few years.

[tcp]

It was my pleasure to share my love of all things Husker with you guys!

 

One of the best personal posts on here I've read. The memory of people puffing on cigarettes during a game cracked me up. I remember those days, too, although I'm only 50. And the story of trying to corral a KFAB signal in Denver--I live there now--brings back fond memories of not that long ago when I'd hit the Sonic drive through and listen to Nee teams work on a crackly radio.

 

One thing I love about this site is that we have some older fans who have such great stories to tell from a time when being a sports fan was so much less cynical than it is now. Thanks for making me smile....

[hoop_head]

This struck a nice chord. Good stuff.

[bkamler]

On one those Husker basketball radio road trips after we upset someone one of buddies says lets see what this GTO can do. We were in eastern Colorado at nine at night on a Wednesday so what the heck!

Put the pedal to the metal and in a few seconds the speedometer hit its top speed of 120 but we kept going faster after that but the speedometer was maxed out. A little while later the motor kept overheating and we had to stop at every creek and fill empty beer cans with water to put in the radiator and build up a reserve of water as eastern Colorado has almost no water.

I thought I had really done it but we made it home and had it towed to a repair shop and it was a stuck thermostat. No harm no foul. Go Huskers!

[berlinblackshirts]

You know, I Love this Place. There are so many dedicated Fans on here who deserve this dang First tourney Win. I am a German native who had the pleasure and luck to spend a fantastic year at UNL in 2002/2003. it still is my Second home though I Never Had the Chance to come back. WE sucked that year (surprise) and I remember being at The Bob against KU with one of my worst hangovers ever (pbr). WE got Beat by about 30 but i still enjoyed it. Husker Fans are special and i always felt that DONU could be good in Hoops. Now WE have everything in Place to Do it. Hope it happens this year.

GBR

[hskr4life]

Well since everyone is spilling the beans....

I am a life long husker fan who is now in college. I joined the board in the 8th grade! Yes you heard that right, I was a mere 13 or 14 years old when my teacher and I talked husker hoops all the time. I was probably he youngest member back then. My first game in person was the OkST game where they were ranked and we upset them at home. Since then, I have seen the ups (beating Texas when they were # 1 or 2) and the downs (losing to KSU the next night or losing to Ohio State by more counties than are in Nebraska.) but I know that I will always be a Husker fan. I don't attend the University but follow the team like it's my job, and follow this board because all you guys are like an AA group for Husker basketball.

Keep it up and GO BIG RED.

[MichHusker]

Very similar to you hskr4life. Joined when I was like 14 or 15. Always talked smack to my Michigan buddies about Nebrasketball. The only think he could say was how much he hated cookie miller cuz of his fro and seemingly XXXXL shorts which I found hilarious