Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1997)
t: Chris Charnley/DN | Angels in the end zone Despite ‘miracle/ God doesn’t care about Husker football LANE HICKENBOTTOM is a senior news-editorial major and a Daily Nebraskan photographer and colum nist. It’s being called the “Miracle in Missouri.” The amazing catch by Matt Davison after Scott Frost’s pass bounced off of Shevin Wiggins’ foot will be remembered as one of the cra ziest endings to a Husker game ever. How does Matt Davison account for what happened during this play? “I guess the Lord was watching over me, because I wa^ in the right place at the right time.” Divine intervention? - I don’t think so. Why is it that, according to the winners, God is always to thank for their victory, while the losers always attribute their loss to not playing as well as their competition? I have bad news for Husker fans everywhere: God isn’t really on our side. He has better things to do. People often have a hard time understanding this, but why would God play favorites during a football game? Are Husker fans more spiritu al? Nebraskans should count their blessings that God doesn’t play favorites during a football game because if He did, Nebraska would be hurting in a bad way. Here in the middle of the heart land we have some of the best damned fans that money can buy. God specifically said one day to Moses that He didn’t want people to worship anything more than they do Him. But in the fine state of Nebraska there is no way that God could ever compete with Comhusker football. Husker power is a religion in this state. When was the last time God brought together 76,000 screaming worshipers together in this state, all of who dress the same, do the same holy chants and pay outrageous prices to sit through sometimes-intolerable weather?— When was the last time God received more play in Nebraska news papers than the good oF scarlet and cream? These same papers, including the Daily Nebraskan, Lincoln Journal Star, and Omaha World-Herald, have been tossing words like “miracle” around Davison’s catch as if it were fact rather than opinion. God has met his match in this state, and if He played favorites during foot ball games, Nebraska would not win a single game until Husker worship became second to spirituality. It doesn’t matter how many “Hail Mary” passes you throw, the mother of Christ is not going to answer. * It is hard to understand why peo ple have such a hard time with this. Most team prayers consist of thanking the Lord for a chance to play and ask ing Him to keep players safe from serious injury. This is all good but when you start praying, “Dear Lord, let us win by 60 points this week so we can be in first place again,” there is something seriously wrong. Last Saturday, somewhere behind the pearly white gates, I highly doubt God the Father was dressed in red yelling, “Hey Jesus, grab me another beer! I’m getting creative with this game!” Divine intervention had nothing to do with the outcome. Luck did. But that notion is a tough sell in Nebraska. After the game Receivers Coach Ron Brown said, “I do not believe in luck but in a sovereign God. It seemed to me there were many prayers and God heard from a whole lot of people at that point.” Yeah, right. I’ll tell you what God heard throughout the second half of the game. He heard the voices of thou sands, maybe millions of Husker fans using His name in vain. I bet there were a heck of a lot more people yelling “God dammit!” than there were people pleading “Dear God Husker madness is a cult religion in this state, and its pull and magni tude is disgusting. There is a point where team support turns into obses sion, and for many Husker fans, that line has been crossed. No other team, college or pro, for any sport, has held as many consecu tive sellout events with the magnitude of people that Nebraska has for its football games. Fan support is noth ing short of awesome for Husker foot ball and it is something the state should be proud of for the most part. But it has become grotesque in its religious tones. If tickets were only $ 1 and Memorial Stadium could hold a million fans, there is little doubt that it would get filled for every game. It is eerie to watch so many people clap in unison when the Huskers take the field. Whfn 76,000 people crowd together in tfie o'nfyabioui five city blocks shid all do the “wave” together, and when everybody is dressed the same and abides by the same belief that Nebraska is number one, it is hard not to compare it all to a cult religion. Enjoy Husker football to its fullest. Continue to follow it and sup port it; but to the people who let it dominate their lives, maybe it is time to re-evaluate your priorities. Blood thirsty Obsession with violence a matter of choice . MATT PETERSON is a senior English and news-editorial major and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist. A primal roar arose from the mass of humanity surrounding the arena as yet another Evander Holyfield uppercut rocked Michael Moorer to the canvas. It was Saturday night, and having only the most essential faculties at my disposal, I was compelled to join in the revelry of my fellow man by raising the roof and whooping in delight. Was this passion inspired by inebriation or human nature? What is the appeal of two Vaseline-coated goliaths beating each other into oblivion? Does this appeal, which bore a hefty price tag of nearly $50, betray the stagnation of evo lution? Is man’s obsession with violence a matter of instinct or of choice? How far did Nebraska slip in the polls? These are the burning questions I faced on Sunday morning. After learning that the Huskers had dropped to third in both polls, I promptly returned to bed, with visions of Sears Trophies dancing in my head, and thus left philosophy to whatever cog nizance this week’s deadline may inspire. However, for fear of biting off more than I can chew and gagging on my own hypocrisy, which seems to be the major preoccupation of the college columnist, I’ll qualify this cog nizance by admitting my blissful membership to the ignorant masses. I enjoy organized violence as much as the next red-blooded (or is that red-necked?) American. Sports and movies are two of this country’s greatest preoccupations - and the more violence these institutions have to offer, the grander their rewards become. Football, a sport in which banging your brain against the inside of your skull (some call it a concussion) has become a routine and liter ally forgettable occurrence, has claimed its place as our national pastime. Apparently, the infrequency of collisions at home plate and those bean-ball-inspired brawls have rendered baseball a passing fancy. Our collective taste in movies has fared no better. The summer before last, it took no less than the potential genocide of the human race, at alien hands, to compel us to the theaters in record-breaking droves. Ordinary violence is no longer satisfying - the masses have demanded extraordinary vio lence. In one of last summer’s most successful blockbusters, “ConAir,” the villain meets his end by flying through both sides of a skywalk, then proceeds to fall through several power lines before landing on a conveyor belt which carries him to a rock crusher where his head is promptly turned to pulp. A wince would proba bly be the proper response, but I found laughter to be much more typical. Admittedly, none of this is new. “Desensitization” was the buzzword of my adolescent years - Metallica, “Miami Vice,” and Mortal Kombat were, according to a score of experts, the harbingers of our self-destruc tion. Cries of censorship proved the inevitable response, and once this paper tiger had been properly dispatched, pop culture was again free to revel in supposed human nature. Now it would seem that society has become desensitized to its own desensitization. We have taken Tennyson’s “nature, violent in tooth and claw,” and postulated our own dubious adden dum: Man is a product of nature; therefore man is red in tooth and claw. Traditionally, mankind is more concerned with distinguishing itself from the natural world. Along with an often-imposing sexual appetite, this assumed violent impulse is one of the fmal links which man concedes to nature. It is indeed a jungle out there. Just watch the latest episode of Fox’s “When Animals Attack” series, yet another example of our peculiar penchant for violence, if this is not already evident. But natural violence has a pur pose, and whether it be satisfying an appetite, demonstrating dominance or discouraging Marlin Perkins, it usually proves to be an essen tial purpose. Man, on the other hand, is the only animal who has come to appreciate violence for vio lence’s sake. If, by chance or by design, we do possess some innate violent impulse, nature has grant ed us solace in the discretion that intelligence prescribes. And just as it is the better part of valor, discretion is also the better part of vio lence. Far be it from me to suggest society con cede its blood sports, be they cinematic or competitive in nature. I’ll continue to love football, and, as far as I’m concerned, if you give Bruce Willis a semi-automatic weapon, he can do no wrong. However, it is important that mankind not acknowledge violence as an impulse, but as a choice. Human beings come into this world with lit tle more than the sucking instinct to guide them; therefore, we must question those “instincts” that society has ascribed.