When Rolling Stone asked me to write an article about why I loved the Nebraska Cornhuskers, I thought about writing Cornhuskers fucking rule about eight-hundred times and calling it a day.
I didnt do that. I did, however, fall into a YouTube hole of Husker clips from when I first became a fan in 94 and 95. I watched for a weird amount of hours, I got goose bumps when I heard the tunnel music and yelled He is the truth alone in my bedroom while watching Tommie Frazier completeThe Run. I legit almost cried a few times. I realized that the Nebraska Cornhuskers football program means a lot to me some people might think too much. Those people are dicks. Its more than football to me; it was my childhood, it was my memories.
I moved to Nebraska from Waterloo, Iowa when I was 9 years old. I guess I was a Hawkeyes fan but the Hawks sucked asshole at football, so I really didnt care, and truthfully, neither did the rest of the state. Nebraska was a different story though. People were bonkers for Big Red football. It wasnt a game. It was a way of life and I was a foreigner in a strange land. So it was either chug the Big Red Kool-Aid or become ostracized. Since I was 9, I didnt know what the word ostracized meant (still dont, looked it up to sound smart) but I loved Kool-Aid, so I chugged that shit.
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I had only been living in Omaha a few months when we won the first of many championships in the 90s. I can remember the moment so vividly. After the win my newly acquired friends and I all piled into my moms minivan and went to downtown Omaha. It was a riot, but instead of setting things on fire and turning over cars (which happens in my new hometown of Los Angeles whenever a team wins a championship), people were dancing in the streets, college girls were flashing elementary school kids and everyone was drinking. My mother was clueless that my friends and I stole three Miller High Lifes from the cooler before we left the house. I was drunk, I saw breasts and my new team were national champsI was a fan.
The following summer I rocked Nebraska clothing in a real way. My favorite piece was a Looney Tunes Nebraska shirt with all of the characters dressed up in Husker gear. Ballin. I was riding my bike with my friends and sporting my fav Looney Tunes shirt when we decided to go buy some RazzMatazz suckers from the gas station to see whose tongue would turn the bluest. My friend Shane crossed the street first and yelled, Come on. He was pumped to eat sugar and meant come on as in lets go. I took it to mean the coast is clear and ran across the street with my bicycle. I didnt make it to the other side.
I woke up two weeks later in the hospital. My mom was there and explained to me that I was hit by a 32-ton cement truck. I was lucky to be alive and after many (26) surgeries I would be able to walk again. It was a several-year process to walk without the assistance of crutches. I was in a wheelchair for most of this time.
When football season rolled back around I was next-level pumped. By this point in my recovery I had watched every single Jean-Claude Van Damme movie in existence and there was little else for me to do. I wasnt masturbating yet. I needed my Huskers. The 95 season was amazing; they crushed every opponent on their way to back-to-back national championships. I felt like they were playing for me, a lil crippled boy cheering for the Huskers from his wheelchair.
Obviously they werent and I was just a prepubescent kid that thought the world revolved around him, but it gave me hope and thats what I needed. As I would do my rehab, I remember thinking I am training just like the Huskers. I am the 10-year-old Grant Wistrom. But instead of training to destroy the offensive line, I was training to walk in a straight line without falling over.
Everyone has a reason they like their particular college football team. Mine is that the Huskers helped me through a time in my life that would have been unbearable without having Saturdays to look forward to. This past season the Huskers gave a young cancer patient, Jack Hoffman, a chance to live out his dream of being a Husker by scoring touchdown during the preseason Red and White game. The Huskers get it. They know the type of impact they can have on a young person going through a hard time. College football is more than a game its the memories. But remember that your team sucks and the Cornhuskers fucking rule!
Adam DeVine is one of the stars of Comedy Centrals Workaholics. The second series of his show Adam DeVines House Party premieres September 9 on the channel.