Reusse: Gophers vs. Nebraska and an 80th birthday on a fall Friday? Good day to be a homer again

There was a routine sports article that popped up Thursday on startribune.com. This involved television having made its decisions as to starting times for this season’s football contests in the 18-team Big Ten.

The headline told us the Gophers had been assigned a pair of Friday night games, which wasn’t dramatic news for me until seeing this:

Minnesota will be home for a 7 p.m. start vs. Nebraska on Oct. 17, which, God willing and the creek don’t rise, will be my 80th birthday.

It has been chronicled here previously, perhaps ad nauseam, that my original source of sports zealotry was those nine Saturdays in autumn listening to Gophers football with my father, Richard.

On the Good Neighbor, 830-AM, of course.

The true Gophers awareness coincided with the arrival of Murray Warmath as coach in 1954. I can’t recall monitoring Wes Fesler’s three-year tenure as coach (1951-53), nor the exploits of tailback Paul Giel, the runner-up for the 1953 Heisman Trophy — incredible, considering those Gophers finished 4-4-1.

Warmath’s first season went much better — 7-2, with Bob McNamara as the superstar replacement for Giel. The biggest victory was 22-20 over Iowa on Nov. 13, 1954, with an overflow crowd of 65,464 (actual, not estimated) at our Memorial Stadium.

The overflow included fans being allowed to crowd on the stadium floor behind the end zone at the closed end. I was kneeling at the edge of the end zone in front of my father. McNamara’s tackle-breaking touchdown return through the Hawkeyes lives in infamy, although there was a more impressive moment for a 9-year-old — also involving a kick return.

Earl Smith, a great Hawkeyes running back, brought back a kickoff late that would have changed the result. And then came a roar from the far end of the stadium. A flag had been thrown for a clipping penalty.

Smith’s touchdown was going back all the way to the other end of the field. I was kneeling there and, I still insist, staring straight up into Earl’s anguished face, and he dropped a king-sized expletive. In recent years, I’ve looked up Smith and discovered he became a legendary educator and community leader in his hometown of Gary, Ind. Earl died this January just before his 91st birthday.

Sounds like Earl wasn’t a fellow to curse much, but I can confirm that when he did, he had a very good reason.

My second in-person Gophers game was the season finale against Wisconsin in 1959. The Gophers lost 11-7, and Wisconsin then went to the Rose Bowl and lost big, 44-8, to Washington.

That was a famous game for Warmath for another reason: The Gophers were 2-7 that season, 3-15 over the previous two, and an effigy of Murray was hanging in a tree near a campus dormitory after that game.

A few boosters still believed in Warmath, his job was saved and he took the Gophers to the next two Rose Bowls. This is where a smart aleck would be required to state, “and the Gophers’ last two Rose Bowls,” but we’re celebrating a lifelong passion of my university here.

And yes I am a proud University of Minnesota attendee, no matter how brief and unsuccessful that might have been. How was I supposed to know astronomy wasn’t a cupcake course where you could point to the Little Dipper and get at least a B?

Plus: I also should never have taken that humanities course without knowing what humanities were. But you get a couple of F-minuses right out of the chute and your back is against the wall academically.

Fortunately, I had this copy boy gig going at the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, and I discovered a smoke-filled newsroom was the greatest place in the working world, and a few endorsements from there got me started at the Duluth News Tribune and Herald as a sports reporter on Dec. 27, 1965.

Six decades later, there are a few people who have questioned my loyalty to Gophers football, but the truth now can be told. As I departed for Duluth, my boss and mentor, Sid Hartman, took me aside and said:

“Young man, if the reporting occupation demands one thing, it is objectivity. You must not let favoritism for the home teams leak into your coverage. If they’re good, say so. If they’re poor, or annoying, say that.”

(Note: I’ve added the “annoying” part through the years.)

So, the fact that P.J. Fleck in 2018, as well as three previous Gophers football coaches, have been named Grand Turkeys by the Turkey Chairman should not be taken as evidence that my passion for the gridiron Gophs has waned.

These have merely been cases of following the sage advice of the late, great Mr. Hartman. Don’t follow your heart; shoot straight.

But Nebraska, the vile Cornhuskers who in one run won 16 in a row vs. the Gophers by a combined score of 632-128 (including 84-13), being here on Oct. 17, with P.J. Fleck having a chance to beat those former bullies for a sixth straight time …

What better way to celebrate an 80th birthday? I’m a homer for the day.

Now, all I have to do is make it that far.