Manufacturing Bowl Games

I went to college in Nebraska and attended the University of Nebraska briefly for some graduate Art courses. I love the state, Doane college, and the University.

Today, a former college roommate and I reconnected for a holiday chat.

"Frank, I was thinking of you when I read this article in the JournalStar ("Painful bowl season for Husker fans");

Last week, Kevin Kugler and Mike’L Severe, hosts of the radio show “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” on 1620AM The Zone, put together a fake bowl game for their audience.

The game pitted Nebraska against Notre Dame, another proud program that fell on its face in 2007.

Fans were invited to DJ’s Dugout in Omaha to watch the game, simulated on a PlayStation 2.

Kugler was skeptical about how many people would show up to watch a video game. Severe kept telling him the event would be big. It was.

About 550 people showed up, most wearing red. Herbie Husker was there. Fans screamed for touchdowns and did “Ruuuuuuud” chants when Bo Ruud made a tackle. Some came from as far as Scottsbluff, one of them telling Kugler and Severe that Nebraska had better win or “I’m kicking your butts.”

A back room had to be opened up. More waitresses had to be called in for work.

“It was a unique thing,” Kugler says. “It could never happen again. You couldn’t do it next year if Nebraska didn’t make a bowl. You could never have the same sort of passion.”

Call it sad. Call it a desperate fan base. Call it a Husker victory.

Nebraska rallied from a 28-10 deficit. Larry Asante intercepted a pass and ran it back. A game-winning field goal followed for a 34-31 Nebraska win.

The blending of the virtual world with the real world is uncanny. The Prozac high that a virtual Mom and Pop Bowl featuring battling pixels of wishful sports heaven fulfillment is an amazing new avenue for denial.

Long after teams have died - their times expired into the retrospective absurdity of misguided priorities - they come back, like resurrected messiahs, healing the longing and loneliness and painful withdrawals caused by a dependency on the vicarious thrills of big media sports. We are hooked on the surreal belief that there is an eternal #1 sports franchise, that it matters, that the Ether-man provides what reality denies.