ROSCOE POUND, NEBRASKA'S FIRST FANATIC

Roscoe Pound, who is best known as a prominent lawyer and Dean of the Harvard Law School, was a recent University of Nebraska graduate when the first Nebraska football team was formed in 1890. Pound was perhaps Nebraska's first die-hard fan. He threw himself into football, often traveled with the team covering their games for the campus paper. At times he even officiated games. But as a booster of Nebraska football and university spirit Pound was at his finest.

Pound was among the handful of students and professors who rode with the team to their first match against Omaha's YMCA. Pound led the fans and players in songs and chants he wrote for the occasion, in Latin! The Omaha World Herald disparagingly reported that, "the visitors were accompanied by a delegation of their Lincoln friends who carried flags of a dull brindle color and gave vent to a series of yells of still more dismal hue." The University team won the game, urged on by Pound's songs, chants and flag schemes. The Hesperian reported that his fellow fans voted him, "the most enthusiastic man of our party."

Pound's enthusiasm was contagious. When the train arrived in Lincoln the fans had taken over an entire car with boisterous enthusiasm. They rolled out on to the street meeting a group of fellow students. The crowd proceeded to tour Lincoln singing Pound's songs, serenading the State Journal building, professors and the secretary of the Board of Regents, before being broken up and sent home.

Pound's grassroots songs, cheering and general enthusiasm formed the basis of Nebraska fan behavior. Decade after decade fans have proven their loyalty and pride in the team. By 1902 Cornhusker football was so popular that 3,000 Nebraskans boarded trains for a two-day trip to watch their team defeat Minnesota. Most teams, at the time, could barely muster a crowd of a 1,000 for a home game. But intense rivalries like the ones Nebraska held with Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame drew increasingly immense and intense crowds.

Sixteen thousand spectators gathered around Nebraska Field in 1922 to watch the Huskers play Notre Dame. Fans packed the sidelines while others sought perches in trees. Hundreds gathered on top of a coal pile to catch a glimpse of the game. Cornhusker fans happily shelled out thousands of dollars for the new stadium that was completed the next year.