… er, make that Cornhuskers, Big Red? Team names can change over time and the athletic teams at the University of Nebraska Lincoln have answered to several. These
handsome young men didn’t let the name Bugeaters (or the striped knee socks) prevent them from taking the championship in 1894 (
Townsend Studio Collection). It’s only one week until the first game of UNL’s 2013 season–here’s hoping the Cornhuskers do as well.
Other
UNL football-related images in
Nebraska Memories include photographs and a score.
Jack Best, an athletic trainer, worked with the team for many years (Townsend Studio Collection). In 1909, Robert W. Stevens, a faculty member, wrote the musical piece “
The Cornhusker,” dubbed the “Official Field Song of the University of Nebraska” which includes two “Foot-ball Verses” (
Polley Music Library Collection). One verse exhorts the team: “Come a runnin’ boys, Don’t you hear that noise like the thunder in the sky, How it rolls along in a good old song from the sons of Nebraski, Now it’s coming near with a rising cheer that will sweep all foes away, So with all our vim, We are bound to win and we’re going to win today.”
UNL was not the only Nebraska school to field a football team. The
four lineman from the Normal School at Kearney cleaned up really well for the photograph at the left (
University of Nebraska at Kearney Collection). Other schools’ team photos in Nebraska Memories include Wayne State College, David City High School, Nebraska School for the Deaf, and the
Whittier School (
Lincoln Public Schools Collection) shown at the right. See more photographs of
football players from various teams through the years in Nebraska Memories.
Nor was UNL the only school to draw crowds to their football games, although it has long been the joke that on Saturday home football games, Memorial Stadium is the third largest city in Nebraska–and growing. As the
picture at the left shows, Kearney Normal school also had many enthusiastic fans (University of Nebraska at Kearney Collection).
Visit
Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.
Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see
http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact
Beth Goble, Historical Projects Librarian, or
Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.
