Let me tell you all a little story.
My wife, Huskerland Penni, and I were driving back to Central City in the late summer of 1990 having just spent that Sunday afternoon in Omaha with her parents, the late, great Harry and Trudi Abariotes. Riding shotgun was our son, Matthew Jensen, who was coming up on being two years old.
Being mid-August it was, naturally, a warm evening, the kind where you mind drifts...and then you blurt out something that's been on your mind. (Don't worry, no need to cover your ears...) But before we get to that part let's take the Way Back Machine for an even longer ride, back to the summer of 1987. Penni and I were living in Callaway at the time and with her expecting our first child - that's our boy Matthew - I took on a second job, that of serving as sports editor for the Lexington Clipper newspaper, located about 40 miles from where we lived at the time.
Having me serve in that capacity took a leap of faith by my boss, the late, great Jim Kelly, who had earlier approached me about being a news writer for the paper. No, the leap of faith wasn't my borderline ability as a writer, it was more about my available time for doing the work - remember, I had a paper of my own to run, the Callaway Courier. We talked it through, Jim was a great guy and somebody I miss seeing, and we came up with a schedule that worked for him, and for me.
And just like that I had a second job so us newlyweds would have a little extra money for when our first child was born.
It was a great experience, a learning experience for me as a journalist, and it allowed me to work with great people on staff at the paper - many of you remember the late, great Dick Brown, who used to run the media room at the state wrestling tournament - along with Lex football coaches Steve Howard and Ron Laux and the football PA guy, someone named Scott Latter. Yep, the same guy who serves as one of the PA voices at state wrestling. You get the idea, a lot of great people.
* Another of those people I got to know worked at Edward Jones in Lexington, an investment counselor whose name I can't remember, to be honest but I remember him being a good dude. We saw each other once in a while and I laid on him an idea I had discussed with Penni, about this statewide Nebraska high school newspaper, sorta like The Sporting News for Nebraska high school sports. He didn't tell me I was crazy, so I rushed home to tell Penni the good news - that I wasn't crazy - and while she seemed to doubt his opinion she gave me the OK to pursue this crazy idea.
Not so fast, I said, I need a second opinion, somebody else that I trusted....but first I had 500 business cards printed up with the name Huskerland Prep Report splashed across the front, knowing this idea would get a its second endorsement. No need for names, let's just say I shared the idea of mine with my friend he suggested my investment friend from Lexington was wrong - I was crazy. Respecting my friend the way I did, and do, I tossed the business cards in the trash and moved on with my life.
* Back to August of 1990. The previous year Penni and I had bought the Central City Republican-Nonpareil newspaper, which was a lot for a young couple not all that experienced in how to run a paper in the first place. Regardless, we were driving home on Highway 92 when I turned to Penni and said, "I gotta try it. I know the Huskerland idea will work, I just gotta try it." Giving me better investment advice than my friend from Lexington ever did she said she was behind me 100 percent...just don't lose any money while you're chasing the dream.
Well, OK then. That wasn't going to be a problem because this was going to be my hobby, my workshop, my garden. But just to make sure this was as good an idea as I thought when I got home I decided to make some phone calls. To people mostly didn't know. Football Coaches. From all over the state. You know, to run the idea past them and see what they say.
The idea was sorta lame in the beginning, the little flyer would consist only of statewide statistical leader boards in all the classes. No photos or feature stores, they came along later. I sure wish I still had the list of coaches names who I called that evening but I can remember my friend Dan Moore from Ansley was one of them; Jack Guggenmos, who coached at Aurora and would become my friend was another; and Glenn Kraay of Bridgeport was another. Didn't know Glenn at the time but I wanted to make sure the Panhandle was represented in our statewide paper, and having spent time in Bridgeport when I worked at the Alliance Times-Herald about a decade earlier I pulled his name out of the hat.
* There are two things I immediately remember about that evening in August of 1990. First of all, I used something they call a phone book to look up these coach's home phone numbers. (You remember phone books, right?) And those guys answered their phone. Thank goodness there was no such thing as caller ID.
Secondly, I remember the excitement that rose within me following each call. Coaches, many of them who did not know me personally, liked the idea and said they would, to use a 21st century term, buy in. Good, let's get after it.
Thing was it was mid-August. And while football season didn't start as early then as it does now I needed to do some serious scrambling. Long story short - hard to believe I am using that phrase at his point in the story - we mailed out our forms (you remember the U.S. Postal Service, right?) with letters of explanation and then waited to see what happened.
Coaches wrote back. (Or called. For the first two years of Huskerland, maybe three, we accepted stats by phone, prior to the FAX machine era. Such an innocent time.) And we were able to create these state leader boards I'd envisioned; it was exhilarating. We actually printed our first year's issues on 11 x 17 pieces of paper and mailed them first class to our bewildered readers, all of whom were also kind enough to buy into this crazy idea.
* There is much more to the story but this is my way of getting around to say that today marks the first day of Huskerland's run-up to the 2019 football season. It is our 30th year of publishing Huskerland Prep Report and over the years we have published the names of thousands of athletes in our state leader boards and also written over 2,700 feature stories on boys and girls who play football and basketball, all done with geography and school size in mind. The idea has always been, we are all in this together. If you ever doubted that look at the tremendous outreach you all have undertaken with regard to our friends affected by all the historic flooding our state is dealing with, and will deal with in the weeks, months and, in some cases, years to come.
My involvement with Rivals.com came to be late in the 1990s and I am very happy to be part of the network but there is no doubt, Huskerland Prep Report is my baby and it's looking pretty good at 30 years old, thanks to the help of a lot of people. I hope you enjoy what we do as much as I do.
Now, let's play ball.
