The End

Well, now that the season is over…it looks like we’re finally here.

First of all, I’d like to apologize up front for making this kinda long. You don’t end a 23 year long crusade and cap it off with a one paragraph long, “Thanks…see you guys later.” No, we have some loose ends we need to tie up before I go, and as you can probably imagine…it might take a while.

Anyhow, let me start off by saying thanks. Thanks for turning a 10 minutes a week hobby into…well, a 30 minute a week hobby. But along the way, without any regrets, I did exactly what I set out to do. This blog wasn’t designed to show you how much better my team was than yours. (Although they are) It wasn’t written to mock your thug athletes, who turned criminal trial watching into a state’s 2nd favorite spectator sport. Nor was this blog really started to break down the daily happenings within one of college football’s most famous programs.

My goal was simply to expose you to the rest of the world.

When I started back in early 2005, Nebraska football was still known…I guess… as somewhat as a national power. Sure they were going through some growing pains with Bill Callahan…but just 3 seasons prior, the team played for a National title for God’s sake. (One that you never deserved to even play for..as we’ve discussed here many times.) Oh sure, you were openly mocked for being destroyed in the 2002 Rose Bowl game. And yes, the public ridiculed you endlessly from afar during your disastrous hiring of Bill Callahan just the year before. But even then…nobody REALLY knew you.

Today…some four years and over 620 posts later, the world finally seems to have seen the light. Fans of every single Big 12 North team have stopped by this corner of the web…oftentimes sending me thanks for saying exactly what they felt...usually after encountering some idiot Husker transplant at work, or that brother-in-law who won't shut the hell up about Grant Wistrom. Yes, fans from across the country were finally privy to your mind-numbing stories, farked photos and media articles that for decades lay far behind a tightly closed iron curtain. Don't believe me? Do you think it’s just a coincidence that 2008's "return" to glory team was somehow left out of the top 25? Think voters are still falling for your “look at us, we used to be great..but now we’re back” crap again?

Yes, my goal was to reveal you and your massive ego to the world, by letting them see just what a complete and absolute freak show you people run out here on the great plains…all by yourself…where nobody from the outside world dares to tread for more than a weekend.

We’ve also talked a lot about the Nebraska media, who have made this blog literally write itself. Special thanks to Kevin Kuglar and Mike’L Severe of KOZN radio in Omaha for not only calling me out on air (multiple times), but for oftentimes have the actual balls to banter with me back and forth via e-mail, somehow justifying their foolhardy and oftentimes moronic opinions. Special thanks to Traitor Tom Shatel, columnist for the Omaha World Herald…who to this day stands as probably the easiest target of all. In all my years of fighting this fight, NOBODY represents the supercilious nature of Husker fan better than he does. Wishy-washy to the core…completely blinded by urge to please you, Tom has made a living of being your ultimate piss boy. Thank you Tom for the all the years of ammunition. It has not gone unappreciated.

Yes, during our time together, we’ve been through many adventures that I will look back fondly on. The Huskers have lost 20 games since I started this blog...more than an entire era that spanned from 1985 to 1998. And man did we have some fun.

Who could forget the rise and fall of J.C. Keller? Looking back at the top 10 Husker losses of all time? The 76 points to Kansas? 52-17? 41-6? The back-to-back colon-pulsing ass poundings by USC? Perhaps you enjoyed the near losses to Maine…The police incidents, the outlandish predictions, the blowout losses, the spitting thug and the return of Tom Osborne? Or perhaps you enjoyed..as I did…when various factions of my own Husker-loving readers who turned against each other in their time of deep despair; so much so they arranged to fight each other at halftime of an actual game? Harrison Beck, Jay Norvell, Dudley Blake, Marlon Lucky and his invisible Heisman, fake tattoos, the Blaine Gabbert saga and all the borderline disturbing events that have shaped you as a fan base over the past few years. I will miss them all. And I will most miss sharing them all with you, if anything to hear your ridiculous spin job that often followed.

But alas, nothing lasts forever and this is a prime example. Although it still exists…evil as it once was has been defeated…my soul has been cleansed, and an entire generation of football fans now have had a first-hand look at what complete and total idiot hayseeds you are. Some say I single-handedly stoked the fires of a new rivalry between bordering states. Perhaps I did have something to do with it? Perhaps I’m the sole reason you hate every single car that drives by your tractor with Missouri license plates? The truth lies in within your own soul…what that is..I really don’t know. What I do know is…NOTHING about you really bothers me that much anymore. Your claims…your stories…your predictions…your flashbacks. It’s all bullshit, because you’ve been proven wrong time and time and time and time again…by me, the one person who knows you best.

Before I do go on though…I do want to thank a few more people who helped make this blog what it is and what it was:

Thanks to Greg, Barney, Brown Thunder and Ryan for creating this monster many years ago. Thanks to Husker Mike, Jon at Corn Nation and some of the other fairly-reasonable Husker bloggers I’ve bumped into over the years. Thanks to Gabe at PowerMizzou, the guys over at Rock M Nation and of course Nick and the freaks over at Tigerboard. Thanks to the Colorado and K-State fans who helped make this blog grow. Thanks to Justin in Reno for all his help with the web design, as well as the anonymous Mizzou student who supplied me with the alternate URL. Thanks to MCPeiper for the game tickets. Thanks to the OPD and Qwest Center security for not catching me when I snuck into the NCAA tourney. Thanks to Maple Street Publishing, CNNSI.com and Tim Griffin at ESPN.com for featuring my work. Thanks to the listeners of Unsportsmanlike Conduct for being obsessed with my every move. Thanks to all my family and friends…almost all who never found out that I have actually written such hateful and vile words over the years.

But most of all…thank you Husker fans.

Relentlessly, time and time again you hillbilly inbred hayseed fuckheads have provided me with entertainment beyond my wildest dreams. You’ve tried to bring up my own team’s failures…while justifying your own misfortunes and mistakes. You’ve tried to tell me how much you hate me…while at the same time never turning to run away from me. You’ve tried over and over and over and over to get me to play your little game, but never got me to crack. My only regret is that I didn’t find a penny for every time one of you clowns left me your best Jim Rome impression, promising you’d never return; and then sneak a peek some 500 times in the following 3 hours.

What you never realized is…I allowed you to comment on my work so freely simply because you did what I never could…and that is fully demonstrate what a whack-job bunch of red-sweater wearing psychopaths you dipshits truly are. Sure, I can tell people from other parts of the country that you send pictures of shirtless wide-receivers to your friends…but then you would just log in and try and defend it.

“Yeah, but you’re scared to death…look them…they’re RIPPED!”

You never got it.

You never EVER understood that the more you fought back, the more idiotic you appeared to those whom I truly wrote this blog for. I addressed you Husker fans directly in every column, even though you were never my intended reader. The real goal was to find that sheltered person who stumbled across the blog on Google or whatever…curiously wondering why or HOW anyone could POSSIBLY hate such a classy and distinguished fan base like Nebraska. While never writing a word directly to that person…I wanted them to fully understand, that what you see on television, lost in a visually impressive sea of red…is certainly not what you get. These people are insane. These people are delusional. These people love themselves more than you could ever love another object.

But now it’s over. The mediocrity once despised is now covering you like a warm blanket. You embrace it. You celebrate it. You are oblivious to it. While trying to take a step forward…you let your leaders take you 20 steps back, and that is your own fault due to your own actions in the past. Karma kicked you square in the teeth, and you Gomers are just too far gone to see it. This is why I have yet to follow your instructions and “Just leave if you hate it here so much”.

I was having too much fun…not laughing with you..but at you.

So with that…in the spirit of you being a complete and total shell of your former selves…let me leave you with a final thought:

I found I was pretty good at writing this blog, not because I have any talent or any real insight. No, I think hundreds of thousands of hits found this website because I knew you like nobody else did…and yet thrived under your resistance. I always wrote this blog knowing that even the slightest misstep in facts, and my credibility would be shot…the message I delivered forever ruined in the transmission, no matter how true it was. But deny to yourself if you may…I stood toe to toe with you regarding the Huskers, because I know your team every bit as well as you do. I see the program with my eyes..while you feel it with your heart; and that is dangerous.

For you see…some of you asked long ago, but the answer was never found: I know so much about you, because I am one of you. Not by residence, but by blood. Yes, in my final plot twist to you…I will finally let you in on a little secret I successfully worked very hard to hide:

I attended to the University of Nebraska.

I stand as a symbol for all to see…for what you believe in and how you go about your daily lives…will someday consume you. I am your worst enemy…your harshest critic…and will hate all of you until the day they put me into the ground. I am what happens when one of you finally sees the light. I am one of you in more ways than you ever knew.

For those of you who have been here for a while…friend or foe…thanks for taking this ride with me. For all the smack talk, foul language and snotty remarks, I really did enjoy writing this blog for so long, despite your endless stupidity. But like all crusades, this one must end as victory is in hand. Your mystique is gone. Your aura of ultimate class and respect is long since shattered. Your history…the one thing you have clutched onto for so long..is now all you have as it gently drifts farther and farther away in the rearview mirror.

I documented your ugly death for all the world to see. I am victorious in my intentions. I am triumphant in doing exactly what I set out to do in February of 2005. The fight is over now.

I won.

I've won because nobody gives a damn about truly shitty teams. And with that...my work here is done.

This is A.J. reporting live from behind enemy lines.

Signing off.