On any given workday, any little thing might send Steve Smith’s thoughts spinning back to Saturday—last Saturday, Saturday two weeks ago, Saturday two years ago, back into the thrilling minutiae of game day—until reality reminds him: this is not how well-adjusted adults act. Steve Smith is not a well-adjusted adult. He’s a Nebraska football fan, and this is his rollicking account of what it’s like to be one of those legendary enthusiasts whose passion for the Cornhuskers is at once irresistible and hilarious.

A journey into an obsessed Nebraska fan’s soul, Forever Red immerses readers in the mad, mad world of Husker football fandom—where wearing the scarlet-and-cream Husker gear has its own peculiar rules; where displaced followers act as the program’s ambassadors, finding Husker subculture beyond the pale; and where the team’s performance can barely keep pace with its followers’ expectations but sometimes exceeds their wildest dreams.

Revised, updated, and expanded from the 2005 edition, Smith’s story of thirty-plus years following the team takes readers back to memorable game moments from 1980 up through the roller-coaster ride of recent years. Blending wit and insight, Smith offers to the uninitiated and the fellow fanatic alike a window on the world where fantasy and football meet, where dreams of glory and gritty gridiron realities forever join. This edition features a new afterword bringing it up to the dawn of the Scott Frost era.
 

Acknowledgments
Saturday
ROSALIE
The Beginning
High Octane
Busted
The Scapegoat and the Savior
Perfect
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Steven
Acceptance
In All Kinds of Weather
Shut Up and Play
Misery
Moving On
UNIVERSITY
What Not to Wear
Higher Learning
Reality
Mad Mike and the Hopping Cop
Culture Club
Worn Down
Two Loves
Prejudice and Pride
AWAY
Iowegia
Fever Rising
At Last
Trouble
Priceless
Baud to the Bone
Blackshirts and Black Cats
Ode to Scott
The Tomfather
Big Red Country
Parity Poopers
HOME
The Good Life
Flag Football
The Huskersphere
The Others
Good Grief
We Don’t Know the Words
Hook, Line, and Husker Nation
At Game’s End
In the Red
Boy with a Coin
BACK
Here to Stay
Exodus
Enough
Homeboi
These Are Days
A Letter to Future Me

Steve Smith is an award-winning communications professional who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.