Editor's note: This column originally ran on Jan. 3, 1998. Look for the postscript at the end.
MIAMI -- Dress rehearsal ended at 7:30 last night.
Nebraska fans here had spent the week primping for the big dance. Dreaming of touchdowns. Hoping for a Michigan meltdown. Then praying for a piece of a national championship.
But most of all, when it came down to the heart and soul of it, they were here for HIM. They were here in the balmy breeze -- in a stadium that moved under the power of their pounding feet -- for more than just another win.
They were here for their coach. You could feel it. As true as the tides and as real as the moon over Miami. It wasn't just a game.
This was history.
And the 15,000 Husker faithful who stood in this stadium on Jan. 2, 1998, were part of it. They were guests at the retirement ball of a man most of them had never met but whose face they knew, whose life they'd held in their hearts like that of a dear, old friend. Their signs proved it: "Can't Beat St. Tom," "Championship Belongs To Osborne," "Thanks Dr. Tom!" "We Want This One For Tom."
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They meant it, really.
Sure, like all good football fans, they wanted another mark in the victory column. A perfect season. A sneaking chance at a piece of the title. They got all of that last night. It was a glorious win -- big and bold and beautiful. Tim Jackes of Omaha brought his binoculars to the game, but he didn't use them to bring plays into focus. "My glasses are on Tom as much as anybody," he said at the end of the first half. "It's just a neat deal to be here -- win, lose or draw. National championship? We've been there."
This game is different, said Jackes, who drove his family down from Omaha to see this game. "This is a great one to be at. ... It's the ambiance of the whole thing."
People are here for lots of different reasons, Jackes said, looking around at the happy fans surrounding him in Section 128. And like so many of those fans, Jackes had spent a quarter of a century with Tom Osborne.
"We kind of grew up with Tom," Jackes said, pointing down the row of red to his three grown daughters, his wife, his parents.
In Section 128 -- smack in the middle of the east end zone -- the wall-to-wall Husker fans did their best to make those things happen. They hollered. They chanted. They stood tireless through 60 minutes of fantastic football.
They did Tom proud.
All week long the Tennessee fans outnumbered the Husker faithful. They filled the streets of Miami Beach with their eerie orange and their colorful colloquialisms. And the Nebraska folk shook their hands. Sat beside them in bars to watch the Rose Bowl and struck up conversations in sidewalk cafes.
Friendly were those encounters. It was a Tom kind of thing. That attitude, brought close to the bone after 25 years of listening to this man preach that how one acted was more important than what one accomplished, that winning isn't everything, that life is bigger than a hundred-yard stretch of Astroturf.
"Osborne is what makes everybody proud to be a Nebraskan," said George Hinman, a former Nebraskan living in San Diego. "He represents everything that is good about sports -- he's a remarkable coach and a remarkable human being."
Things will be different in Nebraska today. But last night the dance was familiar. Everyone knew the steps. Dressed in traditional red, they followed their leader out onto the floor.
And they let him lead.
Postscript: The last 24 years haven’t been kind to the storied program. Was that the last dance? The beginning of the Big Red end?
Osborne and his staff and players were special, says Tim Jackes. The man with the binoculars focused on Coach Osborne on Jan. 2, 1998, is still in Omaha. He’s still a Husker fan.
He has photos from that Orange Bowl -- that grand send-off -- in his man cave. A family collage with his parents -- now gone -- his three daughters and his wife, ticket stubs. A young red-headed coach wearing big headphones. Jackes' middle daughter painting a red N on his balding head -- a Husker fan favorite that warm Miami night.
“It’s funny how often we still talk about that game,†he says. â€I wish we could do that over again.â€
Reach the writer at 402-473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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