Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Situated in the middle of the United States, we Nebraskans can count on this luxury: the right to stand at the crossroads of almost everything North American, to peer in any direction and let the blood of this Midwestern heart flow toward any horizon of work, leisure or discovery.
We look west to the hiking and camping trails of the Rockies and Tetons. Or southwest to Arizona, arid home of so many Husker snowbirds. Or north to fishing holes and more barren, less forgiving landscapes than our own.
But, perhaps most of all, Nebraskans have looked south. Down Highway 81 out of York or Interstate 29 out of Council Bluffs. To Kansas City. To Norman, Okla. To Manhattan and Lawrence, Kan. The places where one cultural heartbeat of this state, Nebraska football, staked its claim.
And in the last 15 years, we have peered into all of Texas. Most especially Dallas, a city of glass, heat, big hair, bigger egos, tough talk, tall tales and football. That we recognized. A voracious, unusual obsession for football.
We stared into those southern summer winds for a century.
But now, as a state, we turn to the east.
We look longer and deeper there than we ever have before, beyond western Iowa and into Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. The gray dawn of the Rust Belt and Great Lakes. To several schools of the Public Ivy, as they call it, universities that stand like old, magnificent trees, their roots reaching deep into American power structures.
The Big Ten is not just a sports conference. It's a culture. An education in it begins.
• Jim Delany's the boss. Delany started his Big Ten job in 1989. As a staunch defender of the much-criticized Bowl Championship Series, he wields considerable power in college athletics.
He speaks almost uniformly for the league in ways other conference commissioners can't; this year when Nebraska was voted out of the American Association of Universities — a key distinction of all other Big Ten schools — the usual sniping or backbites that you might have heard from university administrators in the Big 12 never came. If Delany wasn't going to snipe, then no one else in the Big Ten was going to either.
His influence and reputation were on display during Big Ten media days, when his "state of the union" address amounted to agreeing with SEC Commissioner Mike Slive's speech from a week before. And yet he seemed to hold a ballroom rapt like none of the college coaches — even Joe Paterno — had before him that day.
Later that night, Nebraska media members were invited to a Big Ten Network welcome party. The group ate spaghetti and broiled chicken. And, curiously, a Big Ten Network media member was stationed at each table to ask if anyone needed to know anything about the league. And they sincerely drilled into the group this dictum, as if to share a gospel: "Jim Delany is an amazing commissioner."
• It's rarefied academic air. Nebraska is joining the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. Including the University of Chicago, it's 13 schools that participate in $7 billion of research — $3.2 billion of it from federal funds. It had 80 million volumes in its libraries — the Ivy League has 64 million — and with Nebraska, that number will rise. Eleven schools — including NU — have endowments of more than $1 billion. Eight campuses have enrollments of 40,000 students or more. The Big 12 had two.
• Big TV dollars: League teams received nearly $8 million from the Big Ten Network this year. Delany fetched nearly $150 million from Fox for six Big Ten title games.
"(The Big Ten) did a lot of things wonderfully and successfully," Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott told national reporters after his league created its own network. "They were pioneers."
• Big Ten football culture matters: The stadiums are big. The colors are bold. The fan bases are passionate and occasionally a little loose with their words.
So it's like a lot of conferences and their football games. With perhaps the sis-boom-bah turned up a little bit. More sweaters and pennants and talk of history long gone by. Fewer fans talking about 12 games at once, as Big 12 — and Nebraska — fans often did.
"It's tradition rich," said NU receiver Tim Marlowe, who grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. "Legendary coaches. Legendary players. Great teams that have been around 100 years. Great rivalries. It's historic.
"It's college cities. College game days in places like State College and Columbus. It reminds me of Lincoln. Saturdays are just crazy. They're so passionate about their teams. People just love their football."
NU can bond with its new eastern brothers and sisters on that.
Contact the writer:
402-202-9766, sam.mckewon@owh.com
twitter.com/swmckewonOWH
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