During the last half of the nineteenth century, in the wake of the mass exodus of settlers moving west on the Oregon, Boseman and Morman trails. As the realities of Manifest Destiny spread across the nation Nebraska began to take on a new population. Through forceful removal and or treaties, Indian people were relocated or killed to make way for settlers and railroads. By the late 1860's the Union Pacific, one of the largest western land owners, was laying track across the plains of Nebraska. Lured by the Homestead Act and railroad land Czech, Polish, Irish, German and Swedish immigrants as well as African-Americans migrants from the South began moving to Nebraska to carve homes and livings out of the sod. The diversity of Nebraska's new population was reflected in the student body of the new university and its young football team. Football and farming on the plains seemed a perfect match, both required strength, hard work and determination.
During the 1890's students and supporters of the University of Nebraska were eager to foster a more worldly impression of their school. As a land grant college founded in 1869, the University of Nebraska was the pride of the plains but was nationally regarded as little more than a farm school. While literary clubs and debating societies from the university traveled to meet and compete with similar groups around the plains there was little linking the nascent land grant schools with the prestige and tradition of the ivy leagues.
University of Nebraska supporters strived to bridge the gap between their school and the great Eastern colleges like Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Rutgers. They recognized both academics and athletics as measuring sticks of university excellence and experience. The University of Nebraska had regionally excellent academics, yet lacked a strong athletic program. The Eastern schools had formed traditions and rivalries around the new sport of football, a modified version of British rugby. If Nebraska was to be a, "real college," students writing for the Hesperian newspaper argued, it needed a football team.
In Nebraska the popularity of the game grew slowly but steadily. In 1882 The Hesperian, first reported that a few students "...after kicking each other for a while in sound game of football, repaired to the building to organize." A few years later the medical students formed a loose team. By 1889 the game had gained enough popularity, even without a varsity team, to spur the Engineering department to lay a field out on campus.
The following year Nebraska's first varsity team played two games, the first against Omaha's YMCA On Thanksgiving Day 1890. Forty university students and players packed two traincars and traveled to Omaha where the "Uni's" defeated the YMCA team 10-0. Nebraska credited its victory to Omaha's constant fumbling and the excellent coaching of Harvard alumnus Professor Langdon Frothingham.
Nebraska was on its way to regional recognition only a few years later. Joining Iowa, Kansas and Missouri in 1891, Nebraska helped form the Western Interstate Collegiate Football Association ensuring a somewhat more dependable schedule of at least three games per year. Despite the formation of the Association, Missouri forfeited its first scheduled game with Nebraska when Nebraska refused to drop African-American George Flippin, their star running-back, from the roster.
Flippin was an essential ingredient for Nebraska's early successes on the field. He scored their only touchdown in the 1891 season opener against Illinois. That same year Nebraska suffered a resounding 22-0 defeat to Iowa. The next season, Nebraska's young team and fans were clamoring for revenge. Flippin provided much of the muscle and skill to beat Iowa in a frozen 1893 game. He played through the frustrated and increasingly violent Iowa line, enduring cuts on his hands and face, to lead Nebraska to a 20 to 18 victory.
The violence Flippin endured during the Iowa game may have been tinged with racism, but by no means was football a gentle sport for any player, or even coaches. Dr. Frothingham, Nebraska's first coach, suffered a broken leg during a scrimmage with his team in 1890. Safety equipment was minimal and fairly ineffective, especially for blows to the head. Serious injury and even death were not uncommon at the time. When a Doane player was killed while playing football in 1896 the state legislature briefly entertained a bill to abolish the game.
The bill died in the House, but enthusiasm for the new game thrived even as the Nebraska team flailed though 1898, their worst season on record; two wins, seven losses and a single tie. Players and fans held out for their new coach, a former Princeton player named Walter "Bummy" Booth who arrived in 1910 to teach the Cornhuskers eastern-style "real" football.
