His Holiday Joy Depends on an Orange Bowl Victory

I asked for nothing this Christmas, but don’t pity me: I have all the dark socks a man my age could ever need and I’ve already picked up a copy of Bob Citron’s latest book, “Investment Strategies for the ‘90s: Outsmarting the Bond Market.” And, sure, season tickets for 1995 Rams’ home games would be awfully thoughtful of you, but, really, please don’t.

Besides, what I want no one can buy. What I need only a psychiatrist can explain.

I want--make that, I need --my alma mater, the University of Nebraska, to win the national championship next Sunday night in the Orange Bowl. A rout would be fine, but I’d settle for a one-point squeaker. Should the players from our worthy opponents, the University of Miami, suffer a mass attack of ptomaine poisoning before the game and be forced to forfeit, I would accept that, too.

I’ve made no secret that I’m from Nebraska--my spelling and grammar would have tipped people off, anyway--and there’s no greater bond among Nebraskans than the football team. How we love dressing up in our red hats and underwear and cheering the Cornhuskers on to victory! How often we have beat up on a hapless opponent and then gloated! How often we have stood on the brink of winning a national championship and . . .

Actually, that’s the problem.

Three times since 1981 the Huskers have played in the Orange Bowl, needing only to win the game to become national champs. Three times they have lain face down in the sod afterward, writhing in defeat, disgracing me and forcing a reassessment of my alumni-fund contribution.

In two of those games, they were expected to win. In the game after the ’81 season, their star quarterback missed the entire game with injury. Victory was so certain after the ’83 season (the team was undefeated going into the game and ranked No. 1) that I flew to Miami to savor the moment. Alas, the boys lost again--in the final minute--and I was left to trudge back to my car, a task complicated by the fact I had parked it in a Miami neighborhood some miles from the Orange Bowl and couldn’t find it for two hours.

And then, last year. Again in the Orange Bowl and playing for No. 1, but this time as a big underdog to top-rated Florida State. Entertaining no thoughts of victory, I even let my mother sit in the same room with me and watch the game, a rare allowance on my part, given my behavior during Husker games.

But instead of being outplayed, the Huskers were plucky, if people who weigh 280 pounds can be described as plucky. With about a minute left, they kicked a field goal to go ahead. My mother and I hugged, something we hadn’t done since the late ‘50s. “I have self-esteem!” I cried. “I am somebody!”

Then, those loathsome Seminoles went down the field and kicked their own field goal to win the game. Once again, a last-minute Husker loss of a national title. “I am nothing,” I told Mom. “Your son is a loser.”

She was disturbingly silent. Who knows, maybe she felt the weight of her own non-accomplishment.

I suppose there’s some far-out school of thought that argues that a human being’s worthiness isn’t directly related to how 20-year-old college kids play football, but, dammit, why do I feel so rotten when they lose?

The mental-health people say we react so strongly because we’ve invested ourselves emotionally. We convince ourselves that we’re part of the team. Their victories become ours. Their defeats become ours.

The ticklish question, though, is why some people invest so and others don’t.

That’s an answer I don’t want to hear, because I know it’s going to somehow go back to my childhood and playground insecurities and what that girl Susan did to me when I was 7 and filling voids in my life . . . and I just don’t want to deal with that right now, thank you.

Yet, I believe I’ve matured in recent years. My therapist asked me recently to make a list of “Good things about me that have nothing to do with the Nebraska football team.” I’ve thought of three things already, which means I’m making real headway because 10 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to think of any.

More mature, yes. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be pulling for my plucky student-athletes from Nebraska come Sunday night.

That doesn’t mean that next Saturday night, just before I go sleepy-sleep, I’ll hug my blankie real tight and repeat what I’ve said so many times before: “Dear God and Jesus, please help Nebraska win tomorrow, and if they do, I’ll never be bad again.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.