Former Nebraska Cornhusker football linebacker Jim Pillen, a Columbus area native, businessman, and NU Regent, last week announced his candidacy for governor.
It may be the second-brightest spotlight Pillen has ever experienced.
The brightest?
It shined on the guy wearing jersey number 29 on November 11, 1978. The No. 1 team in the country, the Oklahoma Sooners, was in town, and Nebraska and Pillen’s Blackshirts had a legitimate shot at beating Barry Switzer’s boys for the first time since 1971.
Just how huge was this game for NU’s players, coaches, fans, AND students?
Allow me to reminisce.
As I walked to class on the UNL campus the day before the game, I noticed something strange, if not eerie. Roughly a dozen street signs had been bent and some of the trees had broken branches. I knew it hadn’t stormed, so the damage was perplexing. Then I read in the Friday morning edition of the Lincoln Star about students going berserk the previous evening. An impromptu pep rally had gotten out of control. And young men who someday would be employed as lawyers, medics, business executives, and any other profession you can name, attacked defenseless street signs, trees and set bonfires. The Star reported that roughly 500 students surrounded two huge bonfires on fraternity row near 16th and R Streets. In a symbolic wish to blaze Oklahoma, students fed the fires with a candy machine, a pop machine, a piano, a sofa, and street barricades. Police arrested 17 students. Most of the pyromaniacs were charged with disturbing the peace, but some were accused of committing arson.
While the (assumed) alcohol infested zealots kept police busy, I was soundly sleeping in the basement of my grandparents’ home located two blocks north of Memorial Stadium.
As Saturday dawned, it was cold and overcast. However, a 32-degree temperature was the last thing on the minds of 76,015 football fans as No. 4 Nebraska was set to battle No. 1 Oklahoma in a Veterans’ Day contest televised nationally on ABC.
The 1978 Nebraska-Oklahoma game wasn’t the most exciting athletic event I ever witnessed, but it was the hardest hitting football game I had ever seen, and the Memorial Stadium crowd was deafening. Nebraska’s defense forced Oklahoma to fumble nine times, and NU recovered six. OU’s ninth fumble – produced by Heisman Trophy winner Billy Sims – was pounced on by the future gubernatorial candidate at the NU 3-yard-line with less than four minutes remaining in the game. Pillen’s heroics cemented a 17-14 Nebraska upset.
The delirious crowd stormed the field and both goal posts came down, despite aggressive efforts on the part of Lincoln police officers to prevent their demise.
Big Red fans partied all night. It was if they were celebrating Mardi Gras on New Year’s Eve!
As a Nebraska football fan, this was the brightest of days.
But a dark day – an extremely dark day – was peeking around the corner.
Bear with me as I attempt to reawaken for you the emotions I felt as a 19-year-old college kid. The best description I can give of the following Saturday of Cornhusker football would be this: Imagine a young person, full of life, having that life snuffed out in an automobile accident. Obviously, that’s an extreme exaggeration for a mature adult. But for a young Nebraska football fanatic, November 18, 1978 was a horrific accident that nearly killed my football spirit.
The Cornhuskers had been rewarded for their upset of Oklahoma by jumping to No. 2 in the polls behind Penn State, who replaced Oklahoma as the No. 1 college football team in America. All Nebraska had to do was beat the Missouri Tigers in Lincoln, and the Cornhuskers and the Nittany Lions would play for the national championship in the January 1, 1979 Orange Bowl.
Former Nebraska assistant coach and player Warren Powers coached Ol’ Mizzou. Powers had left the Nebraska coaching staff after the 1976 season to become the head coach of Washington State, and he led his Cougars to a 19-10 upset of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1977. No one, especially me, believed Powers could stick it to Nebraska two-years-in-a-row.
The day started out sunny and warm, but as kickoff approached, a cold front moved in from the northwest, and the temperature dropped sharply. I began to feel uneasy about the game when the Cornhusker Marching Band entered the field for its pregame show, and the crowd simply went through the motions. The fans previous week’s enthusiasm was still hibernating in Nebraska’s taverns and dance halls.
The game began perfectly for Nebraska. The Cornhuskers took the opening kickoff and started at their own 18. On the first play from scrimmage, quarterback Tom Sorely pitched the ball to his left to running back Rick Berns, who darted up the west sideline and set sail for the north end zone. No Tiger laid a paw on Berns until he fell across the goal line at the conclusion of his 82-yard run, giving Nebraska a 7-0 lead.
However, this was a good Missouri football team. The Tigers started to scratch and claw at Nebraska’s emotionally drained Blackshirts. Missouri moved the ball up and down the field all afternoon thanks to the passing of Phil Bradley, the receiving of Kellen Winslow, and the running of James Wilder, a powerful back who scored four touchdowns. KFAB Radio’s Lyell Bremser simplistically put it this way early in the game’s fourth quarter: “The Tigers—of the Show Me State—are showing us a ballgame this afternoon!” As the game progressed, the afternoon skies continued to darken, and the only ray of sun in Memorial Stadium (which did not have artificial lighting at the time) was shining on Missouri. The Tigers won the game, 35-31. Nebraska had not only lost the game; they had lost their claim to an outright Big 8 Conference crown and the chance to play Penn State for the national championship. The crowd filed out of the stadium in stunned silence, resembling a group of mourners who were exiting a church following a funeral.
How could things get any worse?
An hour later, as I was driving to my parents’ home near Valparaiso, my sorrow turned to anger as KFAB’s Tom Johnson announced the Orange Bowl had offered invitations to both Nebraska and Oklahoma. It was no secret that the Orange Bowl Committee had desired Oklahoma all along. The committee members viewed Oklahoma as a more glamorous team and wanted to give the Sooners the opportunity to even the score with NU.
Now how could things get any worse?
When I was 10 years old, I developed a grade school crush on a girl whose residence was about a mile from my home. Sherry Allen and I rode the same bus to and from school for several years. I would often sit by her and play board games she brought from her home. Even though she was three years younger than me, I enjoyed her company.
Sherry grew into a beautiful young woman who not only starred on the Raymond Central High School basketball team, but also made significant contributions to RCHS through a variety of other activities.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, December 12, 1978—about a month after Nebraska blew the opportunity to play for a national championship by losing to Missouri—Sherry, age 16, was driving to basketball practice when she was hit by a large grain truck as she turned her car onto U.S. Highway 77 just south of Ceresco. The impact of the truck killed Sherry and the girl who was riding with her. Sherry is buried in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery southwest of Valparaiso.
Yeah, things could get a lot worse. Devastatingly worse.