...has always made me think of a certain type of mentality -- the tenacity and passion the infamous Blackshirts inspire, combined with the sportsmanship of the fans. Tom Osborne is the gold standard for this ideal.

In reality, though, I think they are catchphrases for "being a national powerhouse." All the elements I associate with these terms are exemplified (currently) by LSU, Oklahoma and even South Florida.

"Not the victory, but the action.  Not the goal but the game.  In the deed the glory."

That quote on Memorial Stadium sums it up well.  It was the creed of Osborne as well.  While victories are great, the real glory is playing the game the very best that we can.  As players, that means being as physical and fast and smart as they can be.  As fans, it means being as supportive and classy as we can be.  

The wins are great, but it is not alone what makes Nebraska "great."  It is that we work hard with victory as a goal, but are not so bound to victory that we sacrifice everything else good for it.

Does that make sense?  

I'm a relatively recent transplant to Nebraska.  I didn't grow up with the rhetoric about "heritage" and "tradition" all around me - actually, our local sports teams ranked either from quite bad (Idaho Vandals football) to moderately good (WSU Cougars football), with one very good exception (Gonzaga basketball).  So there were a multiplicity of teams around me, none of whom were really good, and thus none of those teams had any kind of a mystique about them or were special in some way, like the Huskers are for Nebraska.

I count myself as a Husker fan, but I am not sure I could be a "true believer" fan, like so many from Nebraska are.  That is because I am suspicious of rhetoric like "Husker Heritage."  It seems to me that whatever "Husker Heritage" means, it draws associations with the mystique gained from a program's powerhouse, nearly-always-winning past, plus the Husker-centric nature of Nebraska's state sport scene.  There were certainly dyed-in-the-wool believers about Inland Northwest sports, but far fewer of them, both because (A) less winning was involved, and (B) there are far more sports teams in the Inland Northwest to pay attention to.

One possible way to make sense of "Husker Heritage" is with reference to a certain value system.  Cornhusker Alex has above referred to the "Not the victory but the action..." credo.  But I don't see why that's only supposed to refer to Nebraska in particular; it seems like many successful sports teams, and in particular those who are cited as exemplars of "old-fashioned values," especially those who hold to the game as valuable in itself, could be described as holding to a maxim of that sort.

If anything, I suspect it refers at least in part to the fan culture that has built up around the game.  I was impressed with the fans for applauding opposing teams, for instance, and for the dedication with which fans support the Huskers.  But, as I've said above, some of that dedication comes from the winning tradition, and some of it comes from the Husker-centric sports scene around here, so I tend to think of "Husker heritage" as something of a historical peculiarity.  Obviously, that classiness of the fans is subject in some ways to the Husker's fortunes in the game, and if the Huskers were to degenerate further, so would the fans' classiness.

But many, I think, aren't going to be satisfied with this answer, so here's another consideration which the foregoing discussion has brought to my mind; "Husker Heritage" isn't supposed to be so much a traditional way of doing things as it is supposed to be a vision of an ideal arrangement for our sports scene; the fans are classy and supportive, the team values the sport and its fans in the right way, and - win or lose - there is glory in the deed, so long as your best is what you do on the field or on the court.  (And to make it specifically apply to Nebraska, add some red.)  But the really important parts of the above account aren't peculiar to Nebraska - any team could desire it and achieve it.  So that's why, like the original poster, I am still skeptical of the "heritage" rhetoric.

Tom in his press conference summed up the tradition quite well today.  Boy, it's great having that man back.

Go Big Red!