In a Land of Mythical Champions, He’s the Real Thing

This is not a side-door attempt to point out that my alma mater won the national championship this week. Honest, I really am thinking about University of Nebraska football Coach Tom Osborne--more specifically, how and why he suddenly became a sentimental favorite to win the Orange Bowl this year and, in so doing, claim his first national title after 22 years as an eminently successful head coach.

Keep in mind that Osborne is not even beloved in Nebraska. That isn’t to say he isn’t widely admired and respected, because he is, but he doesn’t have the kind of personality that inspires reverence or devotion, in the way that Bear Bryant did in becoming a mythic figure in Alabama. Tom Osborne will never be a mythic figure. You don’t get weepy thinking about him.

Given that, it’s interesting that Osborne became the object of so much schmaltz before this year’s Orange Bowl. The network TV announcers heaped praise upon Osborne, in effect portraying his near-misses at previous national titles as the equivalent of sports tragedy and, finally, when victory seemed apparent Sunday night, even trotting out Longfellow to memorialize Osborne’s career:

“Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate/

Still achieving, still pursuing/

Learn to labor and to wait.”

What is going on here?

I think the answer is that Osborne finally won, but it wasn’t just a national title. He won, to coin a phrase, the sports media’s hearts and minds. After a career that already places him in the pantheon of college coaches, Osborne had never won the national title. Everyone who knew anything about college football said that must have left a hole in Osborne’s life.

Everyone but Osborne, that is. “Because I’ve never won a national championship since I’ve been head coach,” he said several years ago, “people feel like I’m Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick and that I’m obsessed. It isn’t that way with me. I feel the most important thing is to play well.”

No, no, Tom! That isn’t what we wanted to hear. Nebraska football fans, like football fans everywhere, wanted to hear pledges of national titles and beating archrivals.

In a society that stresses winning over trying, Osborne’s consistent demurrers about craving a championship came to have a grating, tinny sound. False piety, they said of him.

Then, in a game for the national championship after the 1983 season, Osborne did an odd thing. He proved that he meant what he said. Instead of kicking an extra point with less than a minute to go--which would have tied the game and assured him of his first national title--Osborne went for a 2-point conversion. It failed, the Huskers lost the game and an unbeaten season and the national championship.

From that defeat, the Osborne legacy began to grow. It’s been a cumulative thing over the last 10 years or so; he has remained as bland and down-home as ever, never giving in to the easy quote or the temptation to play to the crowd. In an ever-intensifying media age, he seemed to distance himself even more from larger-than-life peers like Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno or Barry Switzer.

That takes more courage than you might think. “Be more animated!” we Nebraska fans would yell at him when the team lost a crucial game. “Show some emotion! Get mad when you lose!” Osborne never pandered to us, never apologized for being who he is. Amazingly, in a 22-year head coaching career, there are no memories of public Osborne tirades after defeat or of blaming others.

I think that’s why his time has finally come on the national stage. These days, when we’re used to people saying one thing and doing another, or professing one belief on Monday and another by Wednesday, Osborne has been steadfast.

For the last couple years, a colleague of mine (from Boston, not Nebraska) has been touting “Osborne for President.” He’s joking, but he’s also on to something, seeing in Osborne those straightforward, common-sense traits that seem so utterly absent from the public arena.

Don’t worry, Osborne won’t run for public office. He’s a football coach, pure and simple, and he’s the people’s choice now because he’s outlasted our cynicism and exasperation and our quashed dreams for multiple “mythical” championships.

Therein lies the tale, I suppose. We should have realized that Osborne wouldn’t put much stock in mythical titles. He’s been showing us for years that he was the genuine article; it’s we who bought into myths.

Perhaps you can tell that while reveling in my team’s long-awaited championship, I also come seeking absolution as one of those who cursed the coach when he couldn’t deliver national championships.

Knowing what kind of guy Tom Osborne is, he’ll probably grant it.

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.

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