Nebraska Football: Ode To Memorial Stadium

This is an essay about Memorial Stadium, a truly special place for every Nebraska football fan.

It’s nestled deep in the bosom of flyover territory. Once it was a symbol of power, the lair of the beast, the home to the mightiest collective in the country, its reputation forged by fearless leadership and unquestioning loyalty. Now, some say that it is inconsequential, that it blends in with the rolling prairies, that it can never rise to its former glory.

My father’s family has a long history in Nebraska. More than a hundred years ago, they were German farmers who weren’t too crazy about the path Germany was on. And so, just before World War I, in order to avoid conscription into the army,…