NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch

Here is a little snippet from NU Team Psychologist Dr. Jack Stark. This one really hit home for me and helped to put some things into perspective: "Q: Can you give me an idea of the pressures these young men were going through? JS: Well, the biggest pressure, too, is that some of these kids come from homes that have nothing. And they know if they can make it through and get drafted and have a shot at it, it’s just huge. Financially, identity-wise, the dedication of everything they’ve done since they were 6-7 years of age, if they don’t make it? It’s just crushing to them. So I always tried to have them make sure to have a dream, a backup plan. If they played pro ball, great, but if it didn’t happen they could always go on to something else. Q: Did the players read the papers much? It’s easy to say that they don’t, but are they affected much by what they read? JS: Well, they read the internet and blogs and everything else. And you try not to let it, but it impacts them. Some of those people are crazy, it’s crazy what you see online these days. Q: What advice would you give those fans? Any positive, constructive advice from the Good Doctor? JS: Well, I’d just remind them to remember what it’s like to be 18, 19, or 20 years old. You know, if you’re forty that’s one thing, but if you’re a young man and you’re trying and you make mistakes, some people say an awful lot of things that create a lot of stress, a lot of hurt."

Here's a little something from my conversation with Christian Peter for the book: "I remember when we first came in, specifically. I think we were labeled as the worst recruiting class in the history of Nebraska football. Fortunately the majority of us who were able to stay with the program, we kind of took that personally. We always had the reputation of not being able to win the big one, where we’d go undefeated through the Big 8 and then getting down to the bowl game and losing to a fast Florida team or something like that. It was always something that stuck with us, and we had something to prove to everyone as well as, I think, the guys took it personally. I remember going down there in ‘93 and still -that’s still a tough pill to swallow- that ‘93 championship game. But I remember, as bad and as painful as it was, we knew what it took to get there in ‘94. After that game, I think it was a couple of days later, guys started rallying up and getting into the weight room and offseason conditioning and stuff like that. There were no coaches involved, we just did it on our own. It was just something where nobody had to say anything to anyone, nobody had to fire anyone up, no one had to get anyone motivated. That’s who we were. That’s what we did. It all came together at once and ‘94 was a lot of hard work went into that team, but in the end it paid off."

Thanks for all the positive replies. I'll try to share a snippet a day if you appreciate the ones I've shared thus far. And as for pre-orders, I'll let you know when that option becomes available so keep tuned to it here on HuskerBoard.

Well, things are coming along smoothly and I'm looking at a late July/early August release of my book "No Place Like Nebraska", where I pull back the curtain to those 90's Championship teams. I figured you'd appreciate my sharing some more snippets here and there, just like I have in my earlier thread titled "Great new Husker Football Book..." and even added a few funny/informational snippets yesterday if you want to go check that out. Anyway, before leaving the office for the weekend I wanted to share some excerpts from former LB/Captain Phil Ellis talking about leadership and mindset: "We just had great leaders. Even in ‘94 we had Terry Connealy, Ed Stewart, we had ‘em all. It starts with leading by example, and if you can follow Christian Peter through a summer you’re gonna be a better man by end of summer. That’s why they succeeded, too, in ’97, because they still had that mentality of how to win and what it takes to win. Scott Frost? We were kicking his ass on scout team. But there was a mentality that was instilled in us, “This is how you do it. And if you don’t do it this way then get the hell out of our way.” That was it. Q: In what ways was that mentality implemented? Obviously you guys put pressure on each other… PE: It was more of a peer pressure atmosphere. The coaches just sat back and loved it. Again, once it was instilled in us through Mike Anderson and Trev Alberts and them guys? You just learned how to win, I guess. And once you start winning it’s contagious. You just challenged yourself, too. And again, going against the number one offense -speaking from the defense’s point of view- we were literally going against the number one offense in the country, and I wasn’t kidding that Saturdays slowed down a lot. It literally was like playing with your kids. It was almost silly! It was almost silly, like, ‘Are you kidding me? You guys are Division One football teams?’ I don’t know if you’d call that cocky or what, but it was just the mentality. Look at Brenden Stai: he’s 330 and hitting them in the mouth like they’re some high school kid. I guess you don’t just learn that. (laughs) I wouldn’t do that now, but back then it was like an everyday occurrence. It was like, ‘Get the hell out of my way, I’ve got to tackle Lawrence Phillips. I’ve got to tackle Tommie.’ That’s the beauty of it, there was no green shirts, no red shirts, no padded practices." And here he talks about meeting his new teammates as a frosh: "(Aaron) Graham and Brook (Berringer), we were all pretty close. I was Brook’s roommate after my freshman year, that summer going into my sophomore year. That was fun. Funny story about Aaron Graham: it was him and me and Brook and (Mark) Gilman, and we were all sitting there and didn’t know Aaron from nobody, you know? And Aaron goes, “Here, let me show you this tape.” So he pops in a tape of his high school all-star game and starts going off about how good he was and was pretty big on himself. And he looks at Gilman and he’s like, “What did you play in high school?” And Gilman was, “Quarterback.” He looks at Brook and says, “What did you play? Quarterback, too?” Brook says, “Yeah.” And Aaron goes, “Dude, you’d be like third string in Texas.” (laughs) Then he looks at me and goes, “You look like a punter.” We’ve laughed about that for years." Finally, here Phil talks about the locker room coaching during halftimes: "PE: Well, the one thing that really sticks out was ’95: me and Doug Colman were both hurt, both had bad ankles, and it was down in Norman and we were at halftime and beating them up like 24 to nothing, and it was the first time I’d ever heard Coach Osborne cuss. (laughs) He said, ”Dadgummit, you guys have got to be watching that tackle!” We went out right away and it was like 38 to nothing. It was funnier than hell. Q: So he accused the defense of dogging it? He didn’t like your effort? PE: Oh yeah, I don’t know if you were ever in there when he gave us those speeches, but when we were in a close game all the coaches were all calm and collected and, “Alright, you’re doing good,” and when we were blowing somebody out, flipping McBride was spittin’ and screaming and chewing somebody out and Osborne’s freaking out. It was like, “What the hell is going on here?” (laughs) It was hilarious." Have a great weekend...

Here's some coaching gold about Ron Brown from former WR Aaron Davis: "I’ve used this many times in my personal life and in the business world- I remember Ron Brown used to stand not two yards away from you and just throw that ball as hard as he could at you to catch. He would just zing it as fast and hard as he could. Anyway, when that ball was in the air and you were running and could maybe catch it, just touch it with your fingertips, there was always the saying, “When in doubt, lay out.” A lot of times in life some things seem just out of your reach and we don’t want to leave that comfort zone, but “when in doubt, lay out.” Sometimes you’ve got to be willing to leave your feet, risk it and lay it on the line. And I think that resonates with every position coach; they constantly challenged us to get out of our comfort zones and to do things that we didn’t think we could do, push ourselves just a little bit further every practice. And you may not catch that ball, but at least you have to lunge and try. When in doubt, lay out. As a husband, a father, a businessman, sometimes you’ve got to leave your feet and go after the big one. You might miss it. And often if you do it’s because you didn’t lay out and try. That was just our mentality. We would not tolerate lack of effort. Not only that, but you’d get your head knocked off."

Here's a little in-game "my favorite-play" story from the book by former OLineman Matt Vrzal, who now owns Piezan’s Pizzeria at 15619 West Center Road there in Omaha: "From a personal aspect, for me it was when we were playing Arizona State and I was (Aaron) Graham’s backup. It’s second, third quarter -and I didn’t play a whole bunch, enough to say I was a player and that made me proud- but not enough to say that I really made that much of a difference, really. Well, Graham comes sprinting off the field screaming, “My helmet’s broke! My helmet’s broke!” So Coach Young sends me in the game. And we had worked this freaking play every time in practice and it was Shotgun 36 Trap. What happened was, the center snaps the ball directly to the running back and the quarterback misses it. (And I had this bad habit of launching the ball over the quarterback’s head and the running back’s head, okay?) So I’m in and Tommie doesn’t know I’m in, and he calls the play and looks down and sees it’s me and says, “Verz, you got this?” And I’m, ‘I got it.’ He goes, “I can call timeout.” And I’m like, ‘No, don’t call timeout! I’ve got it.’ So I get in my stance and I’m like, ‘Okay…’ (Now, I’ve got to keep my rear end low for this snap. You had to keep your butt low to keep the ball low.) So it looks on the field that my rear end is so low that it’s only an inch above the heals of my shoes. It looks like I’m on the toilet, and if that’s not the truth, Paul, I’ll kiss your rear end and like it. (laughs) Anyway, I snap this thing and it’s just a little bit high, but Ahman grabs it. And they blitz right into it, somehow. I took my step –really, the fastest block I’ve ever had- I pick the noseguard off and knock him into the blitzing linebacker and Ahman goes for 70-something yards for a touchdown. And on the field, (we had to watch it on film about 800 times) but Ahman takes off and he’s going (and I had my block, and the defensive lineman is down and the linebacker’s down), and then I take off. I started chasing him. I was running and celebrating and having a great time, and we get into the endzone and I can’t believe he caught it. And later, with Coach Tenopir in the film room, he goes “Verz, you are really kind of fast! (laughs) If you look here, Ahman is ten yards ahead of you and you haven’t even started running yet. (And we watched this so many times) You’re giving him a 10 yard lead. Ahman is 20 yards ahead of you, and then you take off.” Then as the film goes on, now it’s only 18 yards, now it’s only 15 yards, now it’s only twelve yards from catching him. And he’s like “You are actually catching Ahman Green!” (laughs) Everybody is laughing and hooting and hollering. So I’m laughing, too. It was funny. Well, I get into the endzone and Coach is like, ”Now, here’s where it gets scary.” And I’m thinking, ‘Oh no,’ (because I knew what I did). So Ahman literally gets to the endzone and turns around and I’m like right there! He turns around and jumps up and I catch him. And I didn’t think he was going to jump up, and he kind of almost knocks me over. It ended up on the cover of Huskers Illustrated that week. We beat them like 77 to 14. Then Lance Brown did that backflip. They were all mad because they thought we ran up the score. Matt Turman did his job, he checked out of an audible that he saw. Lance Brown saw it too and ran the right route, and Turman hit him on a post route and he scored. Then like a doofus Lance Brown does a backflip."

You should have found Mark Gilman to interview. I was a P.E major and became good friends with him during that time, as we were in all the same classes. As you know he was lifter of the year one year, and he was a real character. A very funny outgoing guy. He was 6'3 190 coming out of h.s, and ended up being a major factor in the Huskers winning the Orange bowl. He caught the first touchdown pass to put us on the board from Berringer. I would love to reconnect with him. I was a skinny guy back then and he wrote me out a workout plan, that I used to bulk up over the years. He was always doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions , which always cracked us up. Aww...the glory days. To be a student and have a buddy on that great team Mark Gilman was my insurance agent for a couple years here in Hastings. He also spent a lot of time up at the Y in weight room when I was doing the same during that same period. A character to say the least yet very fun to be around. Do you know where he is now? I should find him on facebook. We had a class where we had to do very sport you could imagine, including gymnastics. It was funny watching him at 240 pounds have to do the all that stuff. We even had to do a running hand spring off the the vault . We also had LB Doug Coleman in class, and one day , I cant remember what sport it was, but ultra competitive Mark ruffed up Doug, and just walked away, like thats what you get defensive boy. we were taught by the kids who took the class the year before us. Guess who our badminton teacher was? Olympic Gold medalist Rulon Gardner Here is a little snippet from my upcoming "NO PLACE LIKE NEBRASKA" book for you Mark Gilman fans. This is a little ditty about his recruitment: "MG: This is an interesting story. As you know, schools would assign certain areas of the country to certain coaches to phone and recruit. Well, Dan Young was at that time a kickers coach and did some special teams coaching and also helped on the offensive line. He was quite a character and was assigned to certain states, and one of those states was the state of Montana. And what he would do, recruiting in the state like Montana, he would just create a contact in these rural states like Montana, North Dakota, etc., and the contact he had here was a head coach in Great Falls, Montana by -I believe- the name is Joe Johnson (who’s still coaching, by the way). He’s a well-respected coach who has an unbelievable won/loss record and a lot of state championships. As I understand it, Coach Young would just call once a year at the beginning part of the recruiting process and say, “Hey, are there any kids in Montana who can play for Nebraska? At this level?” And this is how I understand it, but Coach Johnson gave him my name and another name of a guy who lived in Great Falls who ended up going to the University of Colorado. Which is funny, because I went on the recruiting trip with this kid -whose name was John Knudson- and on the plane trip to Lincoln he told me that he was going to come to Nebraska with me. Well, come Monday morning I read in the paper that he signed with Colorado, and what I did, I called him up and said, ‘What gives?’ And he said what happened was, when he got home the next day Colorado promised him a starting position and no redshirt year… Q: Oh, man! MG: …whereas at Nebraska, Coach Osborne was too honest for that and said, “Hey, you know what? You’re going to come in and you’re going to compete. You’re going to earn your job.” Anyway, he went to Colorado all four years. He started out with the starting position and he lost the starting postion all four years… and we kicked the crap out of him. (laughs) So that’s how I was recruited."

Here's a new snippet from LB Ed Stewart, who's now with the Big12 Conference: "I really had an affinity for going out on the road. You had the travel squad, which was only about 70 guys, going into a stadium and it was just you against the world. And at Oklahoma, I believe it was ‘92 or ’93, we were on the road and it was a competitive game early on, and Oklahoma was playing pretty well and we weren’t getting off to a great start, and I remember stepping in front of a Cale Gundy pass -it was one of the Gundys- and picking it off and running it back fifty yards for my only touchdown, I think. That play stands out. It was a game-changer. It was making a play and making the crowd… being able to silence a crowd of 80,000 people is always pretty cool." And on one of the first games he ever played in: "I was a redshirt freshman and we were playing Washington at home the third game of the season, and I remember leading up to that game hearing Coach Steele telling me, ”Ed, you be ready to play. We’re going to get you in the game early.” And you hear that from coaches all the time, right? So it’s the ballgame -and I’ll never forget, we’re playing there in Memorial Stadium, Lincoln- and it’s the first, second or third time that Washington had the ball and Coach Steele yells out, “Eddie!” So I go running out on the field and I remember breaking the defensive huddle, and I remember Mike Petko being arm’s distance or more away from me making a check, and I remember looking at him and just holding my arms up, because the crowd was so loud and so hyped, I couldn’t hear a word he was trying to say to me. (laughs) I don’t think that was the first game I got into, but that is the lasting memory I have from early on, of being out there and really feeling the intensity of what was going on."

Hey guys, Mark Gilman IS IN the book. One of the last interviews, he did not let me down. It was a good one and you will be amused by the info he shared as well as some of the perspective and hilariousness that only Mark could relay. Happy to know that you picked a name that I've included. By the way, he's back in Kalispell, MT these days. More info will be in the book..pretty cool stuff. What a great guy and a great tight end!

Hi Eric, I started as an assistant to famed reconditioning specialist Bryan Bailey at the Devaney Sports Center weightroom back in '87 and then proceeded to work with Husker Football as an assistant strength and conditioning specialist thereafter during the Steve Taylor/Broderick Thomas/Jake Young era and ended up earning my degree therafter. Then I was on Full-time staff overseeing all Olympic Sports training from '91 on, working with football guys over the summertime while enjoying the Eric Piatkowskis, Darin Erstads, Karen Jennings', Rulon Gardner's, Stephanie Thaters, and the like. My last game as a staffer was the Fiesta Bowl asswhooping before heading out to California and the entertainment industry. It was a great run at a great time and I wouldnt trade it for the world. My book us my way of bringing all the Husker Football people from that era together once more for everyone to see. You'll enjoy my insider's access.

I'm sneaking one more snippet from my book No Place Like Nebraska in before leaving town. Shhh....Don't anybody tell my fiancee'. LOL This one is in honor of Tommie Frazier, who by now should have received news of his College Hall of Fame induction later this year. This is former DLineman Larry Townsend: LT: It was one of those things where he wasn’t really that vocal, he just did everything with his play. But man, if you needed the big play you knew he was going to do it. His karma for sports was the best I’ve ever seen. (laughs) It’s like if he was falling down and he threw up a pass, it would probably get caught. Q: Like that one to Ahman Green against Colorado? LT: Yeah, and the thing about it was that he did it all the time. He did it so easily. You kind of just got spoiled when he was back there, the dude was that good. I’ll never forget, after we played Miami and saw what Warren Sapp did I said to myself, ‘I want to do what he did. It’s amazing what he did.’ And I remember I broke through the O-line once in a scrimmage and I was like a half yard from Tommie, and some sweat appeared -I blinked my eye- and looked back and he had cut twice. By the time I had come to a stop he was down the field ten yards! I said, ‘Oh, my God. How are you supposed to catch that dude?’ He could run sideways and backwards as fast as he could run forward. He could do all that stuff. It was just amazing. Q: Like catching mercury, huh? LT: It was like catching water, trying to catch Tommie.

this'll be my last post for a week until I return from my Vegas wedding. Wish me luck! Here's Kicker Tom Seiler talking about Milt Tenopir, one of the greatest OLine coaches ever to walk the planet: "I remember I got benched my senior year and I got put on scout team… and kind of pouted. And Coach Tenopir came up to me and says something like, “Is that what you’re going to do now? Are you going to be a big pu&&y?” And I remember that was on a Monday or Tuesday, and that kind of snapped me out of it. I really appreciated him doing that, because I was so down… That really lit a fire under my ass and it really pissed me off, and I decided to bust my ass and win the job back. I’m thankful for him. He was always really nice to me and I’m thankful he was a hard ass to me that time."

QB Matt "The Turmanator" Turman on Tom Osborne's film-study w/ the signal-callers: "Every meeting. It was kind of intimidating. Coach Osborne kind of grills you. When you watch film he’s not just gonna sit back, he’s pointing things out and he’s grilling you with questions and “What coverage is this…” and “Where are we long…,” and “Who’s the hot read…” and “What front is that…”, and “Do we audible?” It’s just over and over again. There was no real time to rest. Practice was physically demanding, but the film room was mentally demanding…"

Wondering what could have been with DB Michael Booker: "The only reason Nebraska didn’t blow all those teams out, 80 to 20 and things like that every game, was because Coach Darlington, Coach McBride, T.O. and all the other coaches collectively got together and took us off the field. You didn’t see us playing well into the fourth quarter, so they didn’t really know how good we were because we never played four quarters of ball. If you happen to watch the films on us, by the end of the third quarter we were gone. That’s when we could have been padding our stats. I had three interceptions to where I probably should have had eight. But because of the trickle-down effect Coach Osborne respected the other teams, so we didn’t get to pour it on."

A look at the old coaching staff from '93 Linebacker Troy Branch: "There was a huge trap game for us -we went out to UCLA- and that was a trap game. They had sprung a trap on us and we had no idea what they were doing. Normally what would happen: when we would start the game I always felt like we were the best prepared team. We would watch so much film during the week that it was hard for them to throw much at you that you didn’t know was coming. That’s how prepared you were, and that’s the advent of the coaching staff being there so long and being so good and all that other good stuff. Typically, the way the game went was that by the second, third, fourth drive in the first half -wherever that took you- coaches would start getting dialed in. They would start going, “This is what we’re getting, this is what we’re seeing, this is how we’re going to adjust.” Sometimes it was like, “Hey, remember what we practiced all week? We’re throwing that out. This is what we’re doing.” (laughs) And so the coaches would start getting dialed in, and by halftime they would be able to go in and go over the adjustments they had made during the first half and put in any hard adjustments that needed to be done during halftime, and then you’d be dialed in and you just knew what was going to happen. Well, with UCLA we were still adjusting midway through the third quarter -I mean, we had no idea what the hell was going on- that’s why the game was so close. And so it was that kind of game. And actually, Trev Alberts played his ass off that game. That’s when you realized, ‘There may be something to this Alberts kid.’ (laughs)"

Another quick No Place Like Nebraska snippet from Jared Tomich before I actually get back to work... "Coach McBride was a very, very tough coach. But from day one you knew he cared about you as much as he possibly could, as much as his own family. And that was the great thing about playing for him, he had that uncanny ability to make you want to perform for him. When I would do something good on the field -and I’ve said this when I speak to kids- the greatest feeling in sports, in my opinion, isn’t when you do something -it’s not the action of a good play- but it’s when you come to the sideline and your coach is jumping on you and the players are jumping on you so much that your neck hurts. That’s the greatest moment in sports."

Thanks Stumpy1. I'm getting married this weekend so I'll try to post a few more little book snippets for everyone to enjoy before I'm incommunicado for a few days. GBR!!

Here's a little tidbit from Zach Weigert: "The best practice we ever had was when Christian Peter got knocked over the head with his own helmet down in ‘The Pit.’ That was a pretty memorable one. That one, and when Joel Wilks got into a fight with a guy. The guy was hanging onto his back and Wilks is trying to run around and slam the guy... against a wall to get him off his back. That was pretty funny. The overall funny one was my sophomore or junior year. We had this rule that if you’d gotten into a fight during practice you had to go into the locker room. That was Coach Osborne’s rule, “Hey, if you get into a fight, you’re out of here.” Of course, he makes the rule and the first week there’s like twenty fights with guys trying to get out of practice. (laughing)"

A snippet by Jared Tomich from my upcoming book No Place Like Nebraska: "The camaraderie of the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 90’s was interesting, as you know. It was a very, very interesting paradigm. One of my best memories is when I was a Prop 48 (and couldn't play that year): I would try to come and watch practice. And I didn’t know it, but Coach McBride and his style of motivating? He was telling Connealy and Christian Peter and those guys… he would say, “Hey, you know what? When this kid comes in next year he’s gonna be taking your job.” You know how coach was. So every time I’d come to practice and I’d sit and watch from the bleachers -because that’s all I could do- within the first five minutes I’d hear the footsteps… tap, tap, tap, tap… of their shoes on the steps. I’d look down and they’d be chasing me. Peter and those guys would chase me out of the stadium! They loved it. They absolutely loved it! They would scare the sh#t out of me and chase me right out of the stadium. And these guys were monsters. You know how they were. (laughs) Yeah, they would chase me out of the stadium every time. If I wanted to watch I had to crawl up and hide to watch practice. And then it wasn’t even worth it. Luckily they were all slow, so I didn’t have to worry about them catching me. (laughing)

No Place Like Nebraska will primarily be online sale only via Amazon... unless I find some exclusive brick and mortar places at a later time. I put the majority of my efforts into piecing together this awesome chronicle of an unmatched championship era and less into distribution and that kind of thing. LOL I conducted over 200 hours of interviews and am still downright floored by the refreshingly honest, revealing and heartfelt material everyone shared.

Here's another "No Place Like Nebraska" book snippet about coaches crossing paths and the kids working their way through the recruiting process... from former NU DB Kenny Wilhite who's now coacing college ball somewhere down in Arkansas(?) these days: Kenny Wilhite: I actually went to a junior college out of high school, and then the recruiting process started all over again. I narrowed it down to two schools: The University of Pacific and the University of Nebraska. And the reason for the University of Pacific was because John Gruden was one of the assistant coaches on the staff and was the one recruiting me (he actually did great job). When it came down to making my decision I had to ask Gruden, I said, ‘Hey, you’ve been here to Dodge (Kansas) a couple times to see me. If you can get the head man to come down and visit me at Dodge City and then go sit in my living room -in my living room in my neighborhood where I grew up- you’ve got a great chance of getting me to commit to the University of Pacific.’ Ron Brown was recruiting me to the University of Nebraska and I told him the exact same thing. Well, needless to say, Coach Osborne showed up on a Thursday morning, we went and had lunch (and he signed about 200 autographs in the cafeteria with no complaints), then flew to St. Louis. He called me when he got seated in my Grandmother’s living room and I said, ‘Coach, I’m going to the University of Nebraska!’ (laughs) Now, once Coach Osborne saw where I grew up, he said he was gonna do whatever he could to make sure I graduated, and that made my decision a lot easier, also. So it was just a matter of whether I could fit in with the guys there and get a good education.

Hey ADS, thanks for asking. We haven't dialed our price in yet, but my best guess at this point is $9.99 for a digital copy and maybe around $14.99 each for the two hard copy volumes. Quite a steal considering the amount of stuff it contains. Most publishers would likely turn it into a 6-10 volume set and charge $18-20 each, but I want "No Place Like Nebraska" in every Nebraska fan's hands by Christmas Morning so I'm making it as cheap as possible, considering printing costs and the like. This was a work from the heart and my grand passion to get all of the great Nebraska Football backstory out into Huskerdom and the entirer college football world, so I want to set the price low enough that no one ever has to second guess the value they'll be getting. It'll be the equivalent of a Husker Bible..and beleive it or not, it actually contains more words than the Holy Bible! No lie. It's huge and it's beautiful. LOL GBR!

The book is chock-full of interviews, HuskerNationNick. It'll be in a format where you'll feel as if you are sitting right there alongside us in a bar drinking a few beers and just talking about all the behind-the-scenes stuff that made the victories so sweet, the practices so entertaining, the friendships so strong, the lessons learned so applicable, and the Husker fans & brand so special during that time. Here are just a few names:Matt Turman, Boyd Epley,Brenden Stai, Zach Weigert, Dr. Jack Stark, Gerry Gdowski, George Darlington, Adam Treu, Joel Wilks, Tony Samuel, Trainer Doak Ostergard, Trev Alberts, Matt Vrzal, Kevin Raemakers, Barron Miles, Rob Zatechka, Tony Veland, Clinton Childs, Trainer George Sullivan, Tom Osborne, Cory Schlesinger, Milt Tenopir, Terry Connealy, Chris Dishman, Aaron Taylor, Jared Tomich, Charlie McBride, Ed Stewart, Jason Peter, Darin Erstad, Dan Young, Christian Peter, Aaron Graham, Calvin Jones, Ahman Green, Radio Man Kent Pavelka & many many more. If you don't own this book you're not a real Husker fan. Period! LOL

Thanks for your responses everybody. Keep 'em coming. Like I said earlier, I'm pushing for a late summer/early fall release date via Amazon.com. Here is a little snippet from one of the chapters about one of my favorite guys from that era: Subject: Brook Berringer. From my upcoming book "No Place Like Nebraska" here is what former NU FB/Grad. Asst. Coach Chad Stanley had to share: "He was so skinny when he pulled up as a freshman. He pulled up in a Mustang, and Brook always drove in such a hurry, like his hair was on fire. (laughs) He was late to the first dorm meeting and he slid up sideways going 70 coming in from the I-80. He was 190 then an...d by the time he left he was 230 lbs. He was a man. But a good student, a smart guy. He was gonna be a pilot someday, and as the outpouring of grief and support showed, he kind of epitomized what was good about Midwestern life and character and hard work and what a Nebraska football player should represent, down to its core. Not just football but off the field, as well, being a good student and all. He was kind of like Clark Kent back then. He was larger than life." Well said, Chad. RIP Brook

Hello everyone, it's a long offseason so I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you about a project that's been near and dear to me for the last 4 years. I was a Husker strength coach from '87-'95 and am presently putting the finishing touches on a book about the 90's Natl Champ years that will absolutely floor you. Two 800+ pg book volumes or digital Kindle format (which would you prefer most?), it's titled "No Place Like Nebraska: Anatomy of an Era" & is non-stop behind-the-scenes insights, stories, anecdotes and revelations fully exposing NU Football's glory age by over 100 of the coaches, players & staffers who made it all happen. Maybe I'll share a few snippets here and there in the coming weeks here on HuskerBoard as it's readied for release. I hope Husker fans will have just as much fun reading it as I've had writing it. GBR!!