The problem with Nebraska starts with the name, the mascot, the essence of the place.
They’re called the Cornhuskers .
As the legend goes, the term actually came from a sportswriter in 1900 named Cy Sherman, who started calling using “Cornhuskers” to refer to the football team that was referred to at the time as the Nebraska Bugeaters. A few years later, it stuck.
These days, we have lots of mascots in sports that represent relics of the old world: Knights, Pirates, Raptors, Trojans, Cavaliers. We could go on and on.
For people in Nebraska, the name Cornhuskers represents a similar tradition, but with a more personal and meaningful touch. It signifies the hard, noble work of farmers who settled on the Great Plains and fed America, a lifestyle that went hand-in-hand with the sport of football as they saw it at the turn of the 20 th century.
But in the modern world, corn crops are processed by machines that can handled multiple tons per hour. The industry has evolved. There are no more actual corn huskers.