Retirements, Winning, Legacy, and Integrity

[Roundball Shaman]

The retirement of high-profile, winning football coaches should always prompt one to think about more than just how many titles he may have won or how good his winning percentage is. It must be about HOW he won. Not just on the field, but how did he go about things. How did he run his program... how did he handle adversity...  how many questionable things may have been done or corners cut to secure that gaudy winning record.

 

The Big Ten has seen plenty of scandals in recent years. Some marquee Big Ten programs with big winning records have been revealed as being involved in terrible incidents. The fan bases of those schools usually ignore or downplay those things in favor of doing whatever it takes for their beloved to win. Those are empty and hollow victories regardless of how much shiny hardware is sitting in their trophy cases.

 

Which brings us to Nebraska. In this State, winning is paramount. But it is not paramount over how you win and the means of getting there. People here want to win the right way. The Huskers are going to win again, and they are going to win in the right way by doing the right things and by the right path. A big page was turned during this past season and the derailed train is once again back on the right track.

 

Some programs and fan bases have a pathological need to finish on top. In football and basketball, even casual fans recognize the names of those programs. Those programs believe they are entitled to win, destined to win, must win... at any cost. That’s not so much being a fan as being a zealot. That gets a whole lot of people into a whole lot of trouble. The games themselves which are meant to be fun diversions from real life become holy quests that must always end one way. That’s not how this was supposed to work.

 

So the take-away here is that as badly as Husker Nation wants to rejoin the upper elite in major college football, it is in the restoration of what the Huskers stand for that victory has already been achieved. The wins will come at whatever pace they will come. Regardless, the Huskers have already won something that programs with better records still have not. The Big Red will win with pride knowing they won the right way.