On Saturday night, a Kansas linebacker lay on the field of Memorial Stadium, temporarily paralyzed.
During the delay of game, Nebraska fans - supposedly the greatest fans in the country - orchestrated a wave.
That same night, visiting KU fans wore T-shirts proclaiming, "Our coach can eat your coach," playing off the weight of Mark Mangino.
In Monday's Daily Nebraskan, we ran an editorial cartoon satirically combining these incidents after learning that the injured player had recovered and was expected to return to the field before season's end.
That night, KETV Channel 7 ran a 10 p.m. report calling the cartoon distasteful and otherwise misconstruing its point.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman gave credence to the report by releasing a statement:
"(Monday's) editorial cartoon is in exceptionally poor taste. Nebraska is known for treating its opposing teams with respect. We expect our student newspaper to show better judgment."
We expect Cornhusker fans to show better judgment. And we can't help but see comments criticizing the cartoonist and the Daily Nebraskan editorial staff for such a "distasteful" display as being terribly misplaced.
A backhanded fat joke is peanuts compared to the sickening demonstration any visiting KU fan - and any reasonable Husker fan - witnessed on Saturday.
But the responses we've received, many from our friends to the south, likely aren't coming from the Jayhawk faithful who attended the game. The sometimes-hostile and often knee-jerk reactions show signs of writers who read the cartoon entirely devoid of context.
The critics are missing the point, as did the KETV news broadcast. Turn your eyes away from the cheap shot and focus on the real issue: When it counted, too many Husker fans acted in a repulsively classless manner.
The chancellor backed them up in his statement, deciding to criticize the Daily Nebraskan for its allegedly poor judgment while patting the waving fans on the back.
And while KETV made a big story out of a non-story, while the chancellor shook his finger at our editorial staff and while Kansas fans seemed to give the cartoon more attention than any students on UNL's campus, well, maybe we should say, "Thanks."
By giving the cartoon more publicity, these antagonists are providing the cartoonist and the opinion page exactly what they seek: discourse.
We want people talking about the character of Nebraska football fans. We want people to know what happened to KU linebacker Eric Washington in the third quarter of Saturday's football game, and we want people to know how the apparently bored, disengaged crowd reacted.
Above Memorial Stadium's main entrance is a welcoming declaration to all who enter: "Through these gates pass the greatest fans in college football."
It's time Husker fans started acting like it.
