Meanwhile Back to the Present: "It's not Just a Game, it is my Culture!"

I might have snapped that in exasperation and disappointment when Plans C, D, and E all failed me, trying to watch the Nebraska Husker football game a few weeks ago. It was the end of the third quarter, and the Huskers had a pretty cushy lead over Southern Miss, so many could argue that the game was over anyway. But the score was not the point.

I was born a Husker fan. No literally. Almost every memory I have of my grandfather is of him watching Husker games in his basement on VHS tapes- it was too stressful for him to watch the games live, he would always tape them, find out the final score, then watch them. He was afraid of having a football induced heart attack. The walls of the basement were lined with years and years- maybe decades- of Husker games.

When my little brother was born at nearly 10 lbs, everyone in the family dreamed he would be a linebacker for the Huskers.

I can't tell you the number of fall weddings I have attended that were either scheduled on a bye weekend or had the game playing during the reception.

Nebraska only has one big college team, it barely has any small college teams, and it has no professional team, so there really isn't any in state rivalry. You live there, you're a Husker fan. And signs of that are EVERYWHERE. From special game day weather reports to flags hanging on homes to license plates on tractors to making game day predictions for extra credit in my high school statistics class.

When I worked at McDonald's in high school, or at Home Depot after college, getting scheduled to work during a game was bad luck. But it was also guaranteed that the cooks in the back or the hardware department would have the radio on, and everyone from the customers to the management would be listening in.

I lived on campus my first two years of college and then 11 blocks straight south of Memorial Stadium for my last two. I could watch the Husker Vision screen from my front porch, I could hear the game from my bedroom.

I never considered myself a huge Husker fan, I was just Nebraskan. Then I came to Panama, a country where the majority of the population doesn’t even know what football IS, let alone worship the Scarlet and Cream.

When game day comes around, I realize just how big a role the Cornhuskers played in my life, and how much I missed it, as shocking as that was to realize. Football was just football. If I could watch the game, I did. If I missed it, I knew the rest of the world would fill me in on every moment of it anyway. It was no big deal. Two years later, I find myself making a nine-hour trip to maybe have a chance to stream part of it on a computer.

The things Nebraskans do for football, I tell you.

GO BIG RED!