No school can claim 100% of their fanbase is classy, nor vice versa. Nebraska has long had a sign outside Memorial Stadium that says, "Through these gates walk the greatest fans in America". But the fact of the matter is, every school has great classy fans, and every school has jerk fans who sully their fan base's rep every time they open their mouth. Even Nebraska. They have some great, passionate, classy fans. Lots of them. They also have some real jerks. Just like Creighton. Just like everybody else.
I'm not looking forward to work this week, because the Nebraska fans in the office will give me hell. But six years ago when I started there, I gave them some good-natured ribbing after CU won, and I expect nothing less from them now that the tables have turned. Its a dangerous trap to fall into if you paint all Nebraska fans like the ones who've polluted the waters of the Bluejay Cafe after the Nebraska win.
All the same, this is a rather amusing story of an encounter with one such jerk Saturday night.
Late Saturday night, I'm sitting in the living room of one of my buddy's house, drowning away the sorrows of a tough loss in Lincoln with a case of Busch Light. Until 2am, everyone at the party was either simpathetic to my plight, mystified as to how it happened, or completely indifferent.
I was talking to a guy (well, arguing is probably the better way to describe it) about the likelyhood of Indianapolis beating Dallas on Sunday. Some random guy wanders over and asked how the Creighton game went -- a completely innocent comment; he's a casual fan who doesn't really follow the team closely but likes to see them do well. I responded, "They lost to Nebraska by 12."
He responded, astonished, "How did THAT happen?"
And the other guy? "Well, that's to be expected. Nebraska wins every year anyway, and now with their new coach? They're going to be as good in basketball as they are in football!"
Ordinarily I would have had no response. But what had started with Heading For The Mountains of Busch Beer, had turned into heavy drinking. So I had a response.
"Oh no my friend, Nebraska hadn't won since 1998 when Danny Nee was still coaching. Creighton had won 8 of the last 10 in the regular season. Other way around, my friend."
A big football Husker fan, he had no clue about basketball, but man, he was trying hard. You had to give him that. "Well, that'll change now. Nebraska is trying to be a football/basketball school, and Creighton is going to be back to where they should be, getting beat by the better school every year."
So one minute, Nebraska wins every year, and now, having been corrected, the fact that they've lost recently will change now that they've won one game against CU. Hilarious. "Well, I think its great if Nebraska starts caring enough to try winning for a change in hoops. But there's plenty of room for two good programs in this state," I replied diplomatically.
"No, there's only room for one team in this state. Creighton's had their nice little run, but they're done now. They'll only win about 15 games this year, their coach will leave, and they'll be back playing in the Civic next year when all their fans start rooting for the real winner in Lincoln." Then he stood up and tried to start a GO BIG RED! chant. In the midst of maybe 6 CU grads, and maybe 20 people who didn't much care for him anyway.
Have you ever seen the old sketch on Saturday Night Live where Eddie Murphy as Gumby hosts "Merry Christmas, Dammit!"? After listening to Gumby read a horrible Christmas story about Santa killing one of his elves, a little girl tells Gumby he's mean, that she was on the Andy Williams Christmas Special and he was nice. Gumby throws her out of the house, saying, "Oh? You want Andy Williams? Well, here, let's go!" You see her standing outside, in the snow, face pressed against the glass, freezing. Gumby says, "About 20 minutes in the freezing cold, she'll be begging to be on the Gumby special! "
Well, that's pretty much what we did to that guy. Oh, you want to tell me Nebraska only has room for one winning team, and that team is the Huskers? You want to hang out with people who agree with you? Well here, let's go! We threw him out, and locked the door behind him. I turned around and exclaimed, much like Gumby all those years ago, "About 20 minutes in the freezing cold, he'll be begging to be inside with all us Jays fans!"
We all had a good laugh. There is no reason Nebraska and Creighton can't both be good concurrently, and I look forward to the day when both programs are in the top 25. They're the only BCS team that routinely plays Creighton, and it would be great if the annual showdown garnered interest outside of this state. That's how I honestly feel. We had no problem with his Husker fandom; our only problem was his insistance that their winning would mean the end of the Jays. That's just silly, and I won't tolerate it.
You bet.
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