People across the nation are often baffled by the Nebraska fan base, how passionate they are, how they travel, and how invested they are in the sports teams of the University of Nebraska. They look for evidence as to why, and the thing you hear the most is, “Those poor people have no other sports teams, no Kansas City Chiefs or Indiana Pacers, no St. Louis Cardnials or Chicago Blackhawks, nothing. Not even a Nebraska Tech to divide them.”
Well, that’s true. But I’ve recently stumbled across something that makes me believe we love our Huskers for another reason. I am lucky enough to have access to the archives of the Falls City Journal, a small-town newspaper that has been in business for over 100 years. Not only did the Journal of yesteryear cover local and state news, but they also published Associated Press articles as well. Much of what they have is on microfilm, but they also have the actual old newspapers in large books for each month of each year. For someone like me, it’s a goldmine!
And before you ask or even go there, access to the public is denied. You can ask and they may research something for you, but don’t think you are going to stroll in, sit down, thumb through the archives and spill a cup of coffee across the pages. The owners are protecting their investment and I don’t blame them.
But stop and think about what all this information means. Even though small-town newspapers are struggling to keep their heads above water today, they at one time printed pages and pages of news for everyone in the state, and the FC Journal is just one of thousands of small-town newspapers across Nebraska that covered the Cornhuskers. In 1970 the FC Journal was a daily paper, pumping out news and AP articles six days a week. Unless you lived under a rock or didn’t get a paper, you saw a headline concerning Nebraska football almost every day. And, if you were like my grandparents, you got the FC Journal six days a week and then the Omaha World Hearld or the Lincoln Journal Star on Sunday. If you lived in the state, from the time you were old enough to read you were following Husker football. And even though the team over the last few years has seen little success and the Journal is now a weekly paper and no longer includes AP news, interest in Huskers sports lives on because of all those little papers who helped grow the Big Red phenomenon to what it is today.
So, unwilling to let the memories the Journal shared over the years fade away, and hoping to create more new Husker fans, I will soon start sharing headlines and excerpts of articles each week from the FC Journal archives. As of now my plan is to give you a snippet from 1970, 1980, and 1990. I currently have accumulated around 25 headlines for 1970, the year of Nebraska’s first National Championship. Hoping to do the same for 1980 and 1990, the series will run around 25 weeks before we get to 1971, 81, and 91. From there, I’ll just keep on going, 1972, 73, 74, 75 and so on.
I may try to include something from 2000, but that will have to come from other sources, as the Falls City Journal stopped publishing Associated Press news sometime in the 90’s.
The information I have been gathering from the Journal is amazing. I was ten years old in 1970 so much of what I’m finding triggers memories of the time. I know that won’t be the case for everyone, but hopefully you’ll find a decade that resonates with you and you’ll enjoy it as much as I have.
For now, here is a sample of what I’ll be posting.
Cornhusker Football History – On this day:
August 22, 1970 – Headline:‘Highly Touted Backs Boost Cornhuskers’ The Nebraska football team begins pre-season practice sessions Sunday with a highly-charged backfield corps but a lot of question marks in the offensive line and defense. The team will not be hurting for offensive punch with the likes of junior quarterbacks Jerry Tagge and Van Brownson, running backs Jeff Kinney, Joe Oduna, Dan Schneiss, and receivers Guy Ingles and Jeff Hughs. About 82 players, including 29 lettermen, are expected to report for preseason practice. Said coach Bob Devaney, “We feel we may have an opportunity to have a good football team, but we have a great many problems to solve before we can sleep restfully on Friday nights.”
I hope you appreciate Husker football history as much as I do and a special thanks goes out to the owners of the Falls City Journal for allowing me to pursue this endeavor and share it with all of you.
GO BIG RED!! SIMPLE, FAST, VIOLENT!!
~Lyle Harmon
Headlines and excerpts gathered from Associated Press articles published in the Falls City Journal. Home – Falls City Journal – Falls City, NE
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