On a September day in 1962, a combustible 47-year-old Irishman took his new football team home.

To Michigan, the heart of Big Ten country. To the Big House, where the Wolverines had won 20 Big Ten championships.

Bob Devaney respected Michigan — he grew up 85 miles from Ann Arbor — but he didn’t like Michigan.

Didn’t matter. Nebraska was not going to beat Michigan.

Nebraska hadn’t beaten much of anybody in 21 years. Eight head coaches had managed a combined three winning seasons. After he accepted the job, Devaney saw the Nebraska facilities and thought long and hard about breaking his contract and returning to Wyoming.

But that day at Michigan, Thunder Thornton pounded the Wolverine defense. That day, Nebraska ran away with victory.

“I did not know about Bob Devaney before he got here, didn’t even know the name,” former Nebraska trainer George Sullivan said Saturday. But after the Michigan win, “I thought, ohhhh my goodness sakes, we’re really going to do something now.”

Thirteen years have passed since Devaney died, and a generation of Nebraskans grows up and grows old without knowing his name.

But something big happened Friday, something that made his old buddies want to pick up a phone and say, “What do you think, Bob?”

Tom Osborne and Harvey Perlman brokered a deal that launches their athletic department, their university and their state into new territory.

Membership in the Big Ten will spark economic progress, promote the entrepreneurial spirit and drive educational achievement. It will change the way Nebraskans think of themselves.

Don’t believe it?

Read the doomsday talk across the border. Kansas chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, whose school could be bound for a second-tier league, said last week, “There are some universities that survive and thrive without a large athletic program. I hope we don’t have to test that out.”

Football is the reason Nebraska doesn’t have to “test that out.” Plain and simple.

Kansas basketball is equal to Nebraska football in stature and success — but that’s basketball. And basketball doesn’t require the same financial care, or produce the same financial fruit.

Which takes us back to that 1962 day, when Devaney planted the seed. In those days, according to Gov. Frank Morrison, the state had an inferiority complex. It needed a jolt, an identity.

Devaney changed the culture. He had a sharp tongue, a quick wit. He could coach a little, too.

He grew up in Saginaw, and his father worked on ore boats on Lake Michigan. Devaney helped the family through the Depression, pumping gas, waiting tables and working at a steel foundry.

Three years after high school, he found his way to Alma College, where he learned to teach. His first high school job, he taught six subjects. Made about 50 cents an hour, he figured. He bounced around Michigan, taking the best coaching job he could find.

If he wasn’t on a college sideline by age 40, he planned to hang up his whistle and become an administrator. When he was 37, Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty called looking for an assistant.

Four years later, Devaney scored his first college head coaching job, at Wyoming.

When Nebraska went looking to replace its coach, Bill Jennings, NU chancellor Clifford Hardin wanted Daugherty. Daugherty said no, then offered a recommendation: Bob Devaney.

Devaney inherited a downtrodden roster, but he inspired players, blending humor with discipline. He beat Michigan in his second game.

The Wolverines would finish 2-7 in 1962, but Nebraska didn’t know that at the time. Three thousand fans jammed the airport terminal to welcome the team back to Lincoln. Several thousand more fans were stalled in traffic en route to the airport.

The win showed the Huskers they could play with anyone. It propelled them to nine wins and vaulted them into the national conversation.

“Devaney, to the day he died, said the most important game of his career was the Michigan game in 1962,” former NU sports information director Don Bryant said.

A month later, Missouri came to Memorial Stadium and NU sold every seat. The crowd of 36,501 was the first in a sellout streak that lasts to this day.

No matter the size of the audience, Devaney always came with a punchline. His wisecracks were as famous as his victories.

In 1969, Southern Cal came to Lincoln and got flagged for pass interference four times in the first half. Trojans coach John McKay led 21-7 at halftime, but he was visibly furious walking off the field. Devaney walked by him, grinned and quipped, “Well, John, how do you like my brother’s officiating?”

Devaney won two national titles in 1970 and 1971, then retired after the ’72 campaign. He chose his successor: a 35-year-old red-headed tactician.

Almost four decades later, Tom Osborne is still making big decisions. Friday afternoon, he stood before Nebraska and mapped out a game plan for the future.

His old boss would’ve approved. Devaney had a soft spot for the Big Ten.

“It would’ve taken him home,” former Devaney assistant John Melton said. “I think he would’ve liked it very much.”

“He felt like the Big Ten, as a whole, was sort of the major leagues,” friend Al Domina said.

In the fall of 2011, Nebraska makes the jump, joining America’s most prestigious — and perhaps most lucrative — league.

Finally, it will receive the payoff for 50 years of financial and emotional devotion to football. The winning streaks were nice. The national titles, too.

But for the state, this is bigger. This won’t collect dust on a shelf.

This is the reward for long pilgrimages to Lincoln, for squeezing onto wooden planks in 90-degree heat and applauding foes in the visiting tunnel. This is the gift for suspending Saturday chores, gathering the family and huddling around a radio.

This is justice for Nebraska’s loyalty.

You’ll hear a lot of questions in the next year: Why Nebraska?

Why not Kansas or Kansas State, Missouri or Iowa State? Those are fine institutions with proud histories. How did Nebraska hit the Big Ten jackpot? Why?

Because Bob Devaney chose Tom Osborne.

And Nebraska chose Bob Devaney.

Contact the writer:

649-1461, dirk.chatelain@owh.com

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