Rooting for the Home Team: Episode 3
Rooting for the Home Team: Episode 3
Part 3 of 4: Numero UNO
Now that I had a full-time job, my first event was attending the football Spring scrimmage at UNL. ‘Nebraska's’ Spring Game. I had accepted a sales gig where I would try to learn about construction projects and work some angle to get my company's products into those buildings. The people in the stadium suite alongside me were influencers that attended those secret meetings the rest of us just heard rumors about. It became an art to get them talking.
"So, you guys been busy?"
"Fuck. We're swamped. I've been working on that new UNO hockey arena."
"Wait, so that's really happening?"
"Oh yeah, that's a real thing. We're pretty far along in design."
I had to hand it to Trev. He knew how to get shit done. Even the shit that the rest of us thought was impossible.
●●●
Coach Blais and his silver tooth were making their mark as well. UNO was getting some big recruits. Winning some big games. And now we had a big new arena that we could all get excited about. Omaha Hockey was having its moment. And no one was saying anything about football or wrestling.
The NCAA Men's Hockey postseason consists of a single-elimination tournament with the top 16 teams in college hockey. UNO had made the field a few times, but it wasn't easy to do. Just think about how good you must be to consistently finish in the top 16 in any sport — it's a tough job. But the 2014-2015 season had a different feel to it.
There was this kid named Jake Guentzel that was sick as hell. He had a linemate named Austin Ortega that tied the NCAA record for game winning goals in a single season. This team was really good, and because it was in the infancy of Dean Blais's tenure, it was easy to believe that a new legacy, a new era, of Omaha Hockey was on its way. I was excited. A lot of us were.
I had to be in Milwaukee for a work event and then needed to drive to Chicago the following Monday for a meeting. I had a girlfriend, but no other reason to get back to Omaha for the weekend, so I decided to post up in a hotel for a couple of days and get a rental car to make the short commute between cities. I had this whole day in mind for my Saturday: Sleep in. Go to Colectivo Coffee. Hang out by the Milwaukee Art Museum in the green areas around Lake Michigan. Read. Reflect. Think about life. Become a better man. Learn the acoustic guitar and how to write a poem. Find God. Lose God. Find him again. Learn why people like IPAs.
But Friday night, sitting on my firm hotel mattress wearing nothing but boxer briefs, I watched Omaha beat Harvard in the first round of the NCAA tournament from my iPad and bad internet connection. UNO was playing at the Notre Dame sponsored regional, and somehow Leonardo DiCaprio broke into my subconscious to plant an idea in my brain.
Hmmmmmm, how far is South Bend, Indiana from Milwaukee?... from Chicago?...Holy shit, I could make it there in time for the next game…tomorrow night.
All my plans changed. I moved my rental car reservation up a day, set an alarm, and drove straight to the Pope's campus as soon as I wielded the heavy key fob.
●●●
I’ve never watched the movie ‘Rudy,’ so all I knew about Notre Dame was based on what I’ve gathered from their football team complaining about requiring special treatment and the story of Manti Te’o’s girlfriend. I took in all the site's the campus had to offer, which were surprisingly numerous. I bought a Notre Dame puck at the bookstore and later mailed it to Mike Golic for an autograph. I walked through their golden domed administration building that I assume inspired the football (and hockey) helmets. I checked out 'the grotto' which, unlike Hugh Hefner's grotto, was meant for prayer candles and not cocaine, playmates, and debauchery. And then I waited for the doors to unlock in the vestibule of the hockey arena with the Rochester Institute of Technology's pep band. They were about as socially awkward as one would imagine a pep band for a private technology school to be. I remember the tuba player asking the door attendant a lot about this whole ‘football’ thing.
I sat by myself, but there were a few Maverick fans nearby. I saw Trev and Chancellor Christensen walking around. Apparently, they found the time to make the 8-hour 35-minute road trip from Omaha. Good for them.
The game felt close, but the Mavs jumped out to an early lead and held on for a 4-0 victory.
They did it.
UNO was headed to the NCAA Frozen Four.
I called my girlfriend after. Smiling as wide as I ever have.
"I never thought this would happen. I’ve probably watched over a hundred live hockey games. That was the single greatest sporting event I've ever been to. I can't believe this is real."
During the team send-off, Dean Blais stirred up the crowd by declaring, "we're not going to Boston to eat clam chowder,1" but the team had something slowing them down in their game against Providence. I went to the official watch party at the local Aksarben Cinema. We didn't have many reasons to cheer, but there was no lament as we all left the theater.
UNO Chancellor John Christiansen certainly felt that way:
"I'll be honest, I cheered (really loudly) for a different outcome. But, I am so proud of this team and the coaches. I will walk on cloud nine for months. This team did something incredible: they earned the right to be among the best hockey teams in the country. And, they brought all of us — and our hometown of Omaha — along with them. This is a team of Mavericks who have represented us all very well. As the seconds ticked away on this dream tournament all I could hear was our student section cheering...UNO! UNO! UNO! We lost, and they were still cheering.
Now everyone knows this: UNO is championship ready.
Bravo!2“
We had already achieved more than we had ever thought possible, but not more than Trev had planned. And next year's team was even more promising. Jake Guentzel, Austin Ortega, Dean Blais — together again with the added belief that they can actually compete with the big boys at the big boy table. And I believed too. And so did Omaha.
I spent the first intermission talking with my buddy's dad about our season ticket locations at the newly named Baxter Arena. I talked my work into getting seats. It was an easy sell.
●●●
Since I lobbied for the hockey tickets, I had first dibs on the games I wanted. There was only one date that was non-negotiable.
Saturday, October 23, 2015.
“Pinch yourselves, Mavericks fans. The dream is real. An exciting new chapter in UNO hockey history will be written when the lights beam down on the university’s first true home ice on October 23, 2015, with the unveiling of Baxter Arena.3”
Omaha was hosting Air Force. The Mavs ranked number 1 in all of college hockey (well, number 1 in one poll and number 2 in another, but just ignore that other poll)4. Chicago Blackhawks National Anthem Singer Jim Cornelison was paid to kick things off, but first we had a Frozen Four banner to hang.
Omaha won.
Despite the fact that I listened to nearly every radio broadcast, the Mavs didn't make the NCAA tournament that year. And then Jake Guentzel declared for the NHL; only to make his NHL debut with the Pittsburgh Penguins, play on a line with Sidney Crosby, score on his first shift and first shot of the game5, score again later in the debut, lead the playoffs in scoring, and hoist a Stanley Cup in his rookie season along with another former Mav turned NHL rookie Josh Archibald. And still, no one was talking about football or wrestling.
●●●
Down the road in Lincoln, Athletic Director and patron saint of football Tom Osborne announced he was retiring. Again. It was a bit abrupt, but everyone felt he was on borrowed time anyways. T.O. didn't need to be doing this, he just thought it was his civic duty because of how much he cared about the University and the State. ‘Nebraska’ and Nebraska. This was his home.
“When the call to serve as athletics director came, Nancy and I both knew what we’d be getting into, having been there before. But together we decided that, if we could be of help, we wanted to make a contribution because athletics is so important to the state of Nebraska.6”
But his time had come to step down.
Most of us felt like he hadn't been in the AD position that long, but the four years he gave us beyond his 25 as the head football coach is admirable. Four years is what it takes to get a college degree after all. I suppose that’s an appropriate duration to serve leading the Athletic Department at the state's premier university after already giving them a lifetime of service prior to that.
Rumors swirled abound who would take over, but the Big Red ultimately went with an outsider named Shawn Eichorst.
I met Shawn once at an event and got his autograph on a mini-football helmet. He had just fired professional yeller Bo Pelini and hired the anti-Bo Pelini named Mike Riley. A man who seemed more equipped to volunteer at his grandkids' ice cream social than running a high-level college football team. Riley was also at the event with Eichorst. They sat at my same table because I went by myself and chose a spot awkwardly close to the front. They were all super nice.
Super nice and seemingly unqualified for their current positions. It cost Eichorst his job. When Eichorst had been hired, a few thought Trev would be the next in line to succeed Osborne; however, it was generally accepted that he was still too green to be handed the keys to dad's Ferrari. Maybe he should spend a few more years driving the Honda Civic and see what kind of body damage he does.
But after Eichorst was shown the door, the Trev rumors gained steam. Maybe now he was ready? He still hadn't crashed the car quite yet.
I went to a season ticket holder event for UNO Hockey and brought along a Nebraska mini helmet for Trev to autograph, much like the one that Eichorst and Riley had signed a few months prior.
"You probably don’t want to sign this, but I'll be discrete. "
"Oh no problem, that's fine."
I handed him the Husker helmet and he repeated the identical signature he had given me on a hockey puck about a year earlier.
Again, Trev got passed up for the UNL job, this time in favor of a large man with the appropriate name of Bill Moos. Moos was folksy and had the frame of a lineman— he seemed to understand football. At the very least he had never cancelled a football program, he was more into making them better. He quickly fired Riley at the end of the season and Riley gave a press conference of his own immediately after the announcement just because he's such a nice guy. Moos then gave the people what they wanted and hired hometown hero Scott Frost to save Husker football with his arrogance, knowledge of the spread offense, and memory of Husker glory years. Frost only became the statistically worst Husker football coach of all time and arguably the worst football coach in any major conference during his years of service. Fans were growing restless. Meanwhile, Moos had all sorts of rumors associated with him. Flirting with booster wives and such. Who knows (probably the booster husbands) but Bill was quietly pushed out as well.
But this go around on the AD search, Trev’s name was more than a rumor.
UNO's transition to Division I was moderately successful. UNO hockey hadn’t made it back to the NCAA Tournament since that magical run to Boston. Blais retired and spent his last few seasons ignoring recruiting, so when new coach Mike Gabinet took over he had to build the roster from scratch. And it showed.
The UNO basketball team twice made it one win away from winning the Summit League title; thus clinching an automatic bid to the NCAA March Madness Tournament for the right to be a 16 seed and get their asses kicked on national television. But that never happened either. One could say that UNO's image had been elevated, but really only if you were looking for it. And outside of Omaha, I’m not sure how many people that included. But it was a fun ride. Supposedly even their financial disaster had been remedied by Trev's vision.
Always there to back his home boy, here’s UNO Chancellor John Christensen again:
"It hurt. And it hurt Trev as well. It hurt both of us. We had talked with several potential people about a way we could solve the financial thing for the entire campus. It all came down to the fact that the answer wasn't other things that we were going to throw out in order to reduce the devastation that was occurring. With those things, we didn't have options. I hated seeing that happen, but the reality is UNO's a totally different place now. Simply said we were in a financial situation where critical decisions had to be made. And if you look at where it's at now compared to then, even the people who were really upset about it understand now that, yes, I cared about wrestling and football, but now if you look at where the University of Nebraska-Omaha is at educationally, community-engagement wise and the entire campus being advanced, along with student housing along Pacific Street and the building of Baxter Arena and the property purchases there, all of that educationally and athletically and student support wise advanced the entire campus. And it happened to be there were tremendous financial concerns, but look at where it came now.7"
UNO did seem to come a long way. Apparently, others agreed.
https://omaha.com/sports/college/uno/coach-blais-says-uno-means-business-in-frozen-four/article_d64760ba-a43c-55aa-8c20-fe2b3bd8ca15.html
https://www.unomaha.edu/news/2015/03/homepage/frozen-four.php
Fey, John Martin, and Don Leahy. A Date with Destiny: The Inside Story of the People and Events That Led to Baxter Arena. Omaha: Interstate, 2015. p.4
https://omavs.com/news/2015/10/22/210442034.aspx
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nhl/news/jake-guentzel-first-nhl-goal-video-family-reaction-penguins-rangers/10meoc40dy4rd1jlned1w77s5p
Osborne, Tom. Beyond the Final Score. Ventura: Regal, 2009. p.135
https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/6922996-destruction-of-a-dynasty-aftermath-opportunity-in-omaha