SHS grad highlights Husker traditions

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When more than 85,000 “Go Big Red”-chanting fans show up for a football scrimmage, you know school spirit is not in short supply.

But did you ever wonder how some of its facets came to be – the cheerleaders? The fans? The chants?

Deb White, a 1973 Seward High graduate and graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, provides that history in her book, “The Spirit of Nebraska: A History of Husker Game Day Traditions The Tunnel Walk, Mascots, Cheer, & More.”

“It goes back to the beginning,” she said. “It’s pretty comprehensive.

“We know how special Husker nation is. I think the book lets us know why.”

The book is divided into five sections – fans, the yell squad, football, Roscoe and Louise Pound and the Innocents Society. White said the book includes “tons of surprises and interesting information fans don’t know.”

Topics range from school colors to mascots to yells and songs to the Scarlets.

Once White determined the order of sections, everything went together smoothly, she said. The 11 chapters are basically the order she picked, with the exception of a couple switched to make the information flow better.

About 50 pages were cut because they didn’t add anything to the book, but “pretty much everything is in that I wanted,” she said.

White has first-hand knowledge about some of the information. She was on the yell squad for three years when she attended UNL and cheered at football and basketball games.

She started researching the book 16 years ago with the spirit squad. It took four years to write the book, with part of that time spent doing more research, she said.

“It was all a learning experience,” she said. “I had a lot of guidance from my editor and publisher.”

She said the hardest section of the book to write was the chapter about the Pounds. Full books have been written about the couple, so condensing that information into one chapter was challenging.

The second most difficult part was the chapter about the yell squad.

“I care about it so much,” White said. “Nothing had been written about it before.”

The book includes a lot of pictures, but White said it doesn’t feel overloaded. Tracking down photographers and getting permission to use their images was a big job, however.

While she was writing, White also worked two full-time jobs as a real estate broker and at the University of Texas.

“I wrote something almost every day,” she said.

She accumulated boxes of memorabilia and information that she said she’ll probably donate to Love Library on the UNL campus when she’s done.

“I spent 15 years in their archives,” she said with a smile.

White didn’t start out to be an author. Her major was fashion at UNL. She moved to Austin, Texas, in 1980 where she worked for the University of Texas for a couple years. Now she’s back at Texas in the Institute of Public School Initiative. Her job is working with underperforming middle and high schools to help their students improve test scores and teach them how to go to college.

“I’m a big believer in education,” she said.

Looking back over her experience writing “The Spirit of Nebraska,” White said she would do it again.

Although her home is now in Texas, she still comes back to football games in Nebraska. While she was researching, football trips included visits to archives and libraries. She also volunteers at the athletic department, judging yell squad tryouts, attending practices and speaking at banquets.

“I continue to do it out of my passion for it,” she said.

She’s excited to see that stunting is returning to the cheer teams and men are coming back.

Now that her book is published, she said, she’s spending this year in Lincoln promoting it. She plans to be in Seward on the Fourth of July and the Saturday before the first Husker football game.

White, whose maiden name is Kleve, was a letter girl at Seward High. The letter girls marched and performed with the band and carried the letters spelling out “Seward.”

“I was the ‘w’ in Seward,” White said.