[Husker] Acting our age!

[Alan Siporin]

Alan Siporin, 58, Oregon. I-back High (Omaha Central) graduate. Classmate
and good friend of Joe Orduna. Became good friends with the late Ben Gregory
(Pope), when I was writing a weekly sports column in 1971. Pope was then an
assistant coach and would come over and watch Monday night football. During
halftime I would pick his brain for inside information. My deadline was
midnight, Monday night, so after he left, I would scramble to put the column
together. When I produced a two-part series on Husker football for National
Public Radio (1984?) I enjoyed a lengthy interview with Tom Osborne and
several players. 

A number of years after I had been participating on the list I got disgusted
with some of the juvenile bickering and emailed my brother (who was also on
the list, then) that some of the posts seemed like they were written by
junior high kids. A short time later, one of the posters made a reference to
his 9th grade class, which changed my attitude. From that point on when
someone seemed especially rude or juvenile I thought: what should I expect
from a 14-year old? Then, a little while later, one rude poster made a
reference to graduating from Nebraska in 1970, making him about the same age
as me! It's one of the great things about the internet, this anonymity of
age, gender, race and who knows what else. In this regard, all this
age-identification has been fascinating.

This is the only place I post, and rarely (in short streaks, I guess). I
read other message boards, though, mostly to glean recruiting information.
What I experience, there, is usually a fairly rapid disintegration into
bickering and rude behavior. Despite what I wrote above, I would guess that
the age demographic for those boards is lower than Mike's list.

At least we can take this as a reminder to act our age. Oh no, don't tell me
we are acting out age!

Alan