Long time Husker fan who is living large right now!

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!