The Communal Magic of a Nebraska Football Saturday
This fall marks my 51st year of attending Nebraska football games. Over that time, I’ve seen the highs of championship seasons and the lows of rebuilding years. I’ve watched Heisman winners take the field and teams fight through adversity. And while I love winning—this overly competitive person even in his 50’s—I’ve realized that what keeps me coming back year after year isn’t just the game itself. It’s the communal experience that happens when you walk into Memorial Stadium on a Saturday in Lincoln.
We live in a time when our society feels more fractured than ever. Divisions over politics, race, religion, and a dozen other labels seem to dominate headlines and conversations. Often, those divisions are drawn without real reason or genuine understanding. But on a Nebraska game day, all of that fades away.
Memorial Stadium has sold out for more than 400 consecutive games, drawing over 85,000 people each time. That’s 85,000 individuals from every corner of life—different ages, backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences—from towns of 200 to a city now over a million people—from farmers who feed us to urban business leaders who are among the riches people on earth—all who set aside all the “other” descriptors that might define them in daily life. In that moment, we are one. The only label that matters is “Nebraska.”
There is something profoundly unifying about standing shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers, all cheering for the same team. You high-five the person next to you without asking how they voted. You share nachos or a laugh with someone you’ve never met, not caring about what religion they practice or where they grew up. The focus is on what we want together—a Nebraska win, or at the very least, good football.
That’s what makes this more than just sports. It’s one of the few remaining spaces in our culture where the divisions don’t matter. We aren’t ignoring our differences; they simply become irrelevant for a few hours. The stadium transforms into a place where connection is based on shared hope, shared disappointment, and shared celebration.
In many ways, it’s a reminder of how much we have in common if we look past the surface. The roar after a touchdown doesn’t sound different depending on who’s cheering. The tension in the air during a close game doesn’t affect only one type of person. These moments belong to all of us equally, and that shared emotional investment binds people together in a way that’s increasingly rare in modern life.
Of course, I still love the game—the strategy, the competition, the history. But what I value more is what happens in the stands. It’s seeing a sea of red, knowing that for these hours, the crowd is a single community. It’s remembering that joy, hope, and pride are universal languages we can still speak together.
When the final whistle blows and we leave the stadium, we go back to our separate lives, our own challenges, and yes, our divisions. But for that time inside Memorial Stadium, we’re reminded that connection is possible—and that sometimes, we’re more alike than we think. That’s a win worth coming back for, year after year.
Photo by Brian Kuti on Unsplash