Read from "At Last: Nebraska 24-Miami 17-January 1, 1995" in Forever Red: Confessions of a Cornhusker Football Fan by Steve Smith:

"But in a stirring string of events, Nebraska found itself at the Miami 15, and seconds later, Frazier put the ball in fullback Cory Schlesinger’s hands. No. 40 slipped past the line, leaped over a Hurricane at the 5, and remarkably, bounded into the end zone. Then Frazier fired a bullet to Eric Alford for 2 points, and the game was tied. At some point during all of this, I turned to Michael. He was looking at me, holding up four fingers. Then he asked: “Do you believe?”

Suddenly, I did. And the Cornhuskers rewarded me in the greatest way possible. In a drive that gets sweeter every time I think of it, NU pounded its way into history by putting on a clinic on Nebraska football. Lawrence Phillips off the right side. A timing-route catch by Reggie Baul. Frazier on the option for 25 big ones. Phillips again, up the gut for 7 more. Phillips on the stretch play to the right. Frazier on an option again, for 6 yards and a crucial first down. And then, in the fifty-eighth minute of the sixty-first Orange Bowl, Frazier slipped the ball to Schlesinger again, and the kid from Duncan charged straight ahead, caught a block from Abdul Muhammad, and tumbled onto colored turf. The next thing I knew, I was running down the hall away from the living room, fists pummeling the air, screaming something unintelligible. Darian Hagan, Eric Bienemy, Steve Walsh, Scott Bentley – they were all behind me now. Far, far behind.

Then, those things I couldn’t picture before began to play out: The Huskers in the victory formation, in the Orange Bowl. Frazier going down on one knee. Dr. Tom receiving congrats from his players, his assistants, even one of the chain-gang guys. Dr. Tom getting Gatoraded, having a “Big Red 1994 National Champs” hat slapped on his head, and being interviewed by John Dockery while flash bulbs burst. The Big Red leaving the field, helmets held high in triumph. I’m not ashamed to say I wept like a day-old infant at the sight of all this, because I know of much manlier men who broke down into even bigger piles of Jell-O at this sight. At last it had finally happened, and no emotion seemed too big.

Our celebration carried on into the early morning. When we finally got back to our apartment I found a half-dozen phone messages, all from Iowa City friends calling with congratulations. The next day, I must’ve spent three hours on the phone chatting with people who thought immediately of calling me after the Cornhuskers’ win. That’s something only Husker football can do. I mean, lots of people know I love U2 and are aware that I’m a devoted fan of their music, but no one has ever floated me a congratulatory call after the band wins a Grammy. I really dig the thought that when some of my friends see the Big Red on TV, I’m the first person they think of. In a way that gives me an even bigger stake in the team.

That week my folks mailed me two videotapes. The first was a copy of NBC’s game broadcast, the second, local news coverage of the team’s reception at the Devaney Sports Center. To a man, the players and coaches stepped to the podium and declared they hadn’t won the Orange Bowl just for the team, they’d won it for the whole state of Nebraska.

They weren’t saying this just to get some cheap applause. Nor had they come up with the cliché proposal of dedicating the victory to the fans like some kind of game ball. No, they were merely recognizing the obvious: This championship belonged to all of us. Over the years, we’d worked hard and put in the time and effort, and suffered through all those cataclysmic near-misses too. That’s what made this all the more sweet.

Kent Pavelka said it best during the game’s radio broadcast, when he was opining about the win being the end of a quest by the players, the football program, and, yes, the fans. It might sound absurd anywhere else to give the fans that much credit, but Husker fandom is much different than at other schools, which can only dream of having the border-to-border community of support that exists in Nebraska. That brings us closer to the team, somehow; and we know when the Big Red wins a big one – in this case, the big one – the players are the ones who get to hoist the trophy and wear the rings. But they do it knowing they’re not alone. We’re a part of them, and they’re a part of us.

I guess that’s why, while watching my worn-out tape of that most cherished, most special victory for the thousandth time, I still get blubbery – and exhausted, as if I’d played the game myself and left it all out there on the field. But most of all, I’m really, really proud, because I’d like to think I, too, really accomplished something that night."

To read another excerpt or to purchase Forever Red, visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Forever-Red,671842.aspx.