What Do You Want From Us?
This is my 13th, 14th year of running CornNation. I don’t keep track because I don’t care. Never been much for anniversaries except for my marriage, and that’s because there’s someone else very special involved. There are no plans of going away anytime soon (from my marriage or from CN). The world might have other plans for me, but right now I figure to be here for the long haul.
One of my goals in running this website was, is, and will always be to build a strong community. I feel we’ve done that. I’ve always believed a diversity of opinions makes us stronger. Although we can always be more tolerant, I feel like we’ve accomplished that as well.
CornNation has (obviously) always focused on University of Nebraska sports. There are no sports right now. I have no desire to lose our community. Therefore, we will keep writing and publishing to keep everyone around.
This article is asking you, the community, what you’d like to see from us - what type of content you’d like us to produce?
I have several ideas:
Past Sportsin!
The first is obvious - reviewing old sports games, takes, matches, you have it.
We can go back and review past Nebraska football seasons. We can cover baseball if you like. Any sport someone (including you) will contribute to. I have to admit this is not my favorite idea. Nebraska fans have had a tendency to live in the past for way too long. If all we do is go back and review the 90’s, I feel like I’m contributing to that behavior. I realize we’re in a unique situation, but I’ve always kinda believed in moving forward.
Conversely, there’s an arguement to be made about maintaining the familiar. We can pick your favorite games, perhaps find them online and view them together (kind of like we’ve tried with “Movie Night” which has not been very popular). Let us know in the comments.
Stupid Stories
I told a few over the years. Here are three examples - one didn’t even have sportsin’ in it (but it does have beer):
1982 Nebraska - Oklahoma: A Near Death Experience
It’s pandemonium around the goal post. There are hundreds of people swarming around it, and each side would lunge to try to grab it. As an individual, you had no control over where you were going, you just went with the crowd. As each side lunged, people were jumping up to grab it. In the process, I fell down. It was black, and all I saw were shoes and legs, the sky had disappeared. I had a stupid straw hat at the time - it was kicked off my head and while I was trying to grab it people continue to step on me and unintentionally kick me.
It was at this moment that God sent an angel as some huge guy appears over me, screaming at the top of his lungs:
“Get him off the ground, get him up, get him up!’
Nickel Pitcher Night
Nickel Pitcher Night was exactly as stated. You have a nickel, you can get a pitcher of beer.
This is quite exciting news for a broke college student and as like many things I did as a student, I ran around with many friends on the Schramm dorm floor, gathering as many as I could (and they could, it wasn’t just me) to go downtown and get some cheap beer.
”I have a quarter! I am getting so wasted!”, would be the general response.
And off we would go, to Nickel Pitcher Night, the 15-20 guys we could gather from my dorm floor.
My ‘92 Nebraska-Iowa State Story: Tearing Down Goal Posts in Ames
On the kick-off after a Nebraska score the ball sails all the way through the uprights. In a moment of glee, with a beer can in my hand, I stand up, single touchdown, and scream “Field Goal!” at the top of my lungs. At that instant an Iowa State policeman who is ten yards to my left yells at me.
”Buddy, you and YOUR CAN are outta here!”
”For what?”
”You can’t bring alcohol into the stadium.”
”And I’m the only person with alcohol?”
My voice is rising.
”You’re the only one I see.”
So is his.
”You must have pretty selective vision.”
At this point, he’s moved toward me and I have moved toward him to the point that we’re just about in each other’s face. My buddy Todd saves me when moves between us and begins pushing me towards the exit. The cop follows us, yelling more warnings about jail, fines, charges, and my heritage.
”You come back into the stadium, you’re going to jail.”
I’ve never trusted a human being who could at once tell you the stupidest thing they’ve ever done when asked. Either they have not done many stupid things or they’re not willing to tell you about them.
Stupid-thing doers tend to see ourselves as risk takers. Bold. Daring. Adventurous. Unafraid. We see the opposite in others. Meek. Planning, calm, steady, and afraid. None of these are better than the others, it just makes us feel better about our stupidity. If someone asked me, “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”, I would have to think for a long time. I would respond, “In what context?”, just to give myself time to think. I have a big inventory of stupidity.
BTW, I have no problem accepting the contribution of stories about your stupidity. That way we can all feel more human together.
Been Dead, Never Been To Europe: Surviving the Widowmaker Heart Attack and The Brain Injury That Came Along With It
(This is a working title.) I’ve been sitting on a book about my death and brain injury for quite some time now. It’s about 90% done. The ending needs work. My biggest goal for this year was to get it published.
It is the story of my heart attack, the brain injury and what I went through in healing and recovery. I thought I might publish excerpts from it, along with background information that won’t go into the actual book. It needs to get out of my life so that I can move on and write other books.
I am of course interested in anything our community might have to offer in the way of either writing or ideas. You can post here in the comments section, or send me an email: cornnation@gmail.com.
My plan is to maintain this community. I know there’s a lot you that care about each other and there’s a lot of you that care about torturing each other (on a fairly regular basis). I want to keep ourselves together and maybe we all get through this intact. It was only a short time ago that I had planned to attend the NCAA wrestling tournament as a credentialed photographer. So much of the world was changed since then. It’s unbelievable. We don’t know what lies ahead.
There are articles everywhere projecting the future. I urge you to not worry about what’s going to happen a month from now or six months from now, but to take your lives day by day. It is perhaps the most powerful thing I learned from dying.
You get up, you feel good mentally, physically. Perhaps you accomplish something. That makes it a good day. Some days I still fight myself to get out of bed. Some days I have horrible headaches. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself and drink myself to oblivion. I try hard to make sure the good days outnumber the bad.
Day by day. It’s in the Husker prayer. That’s how it needs to be.
Comments, please.