It was the fans’ turn to take the field on Saturday, Aug. 8.

Fan Day 2009 gave way to thousands of Big Red fans with posters, programs, jerseys, helmets and T-shirts, trying to get autographs from Husker players and coaches. The fans were from all over Nebraska and beyond. The lines were already meandering well into the university’s campus an hour before the event started. Once the gates opened and the fans got inside the stadium, they plotted out which lines to wait in and which to pass. It was crowded, and they had to hurry to get the most out the afternoon.

One common reaction, from both the young kids playing catch with the footballs they just got signed and the adults who have been coming to fan day year after year, was to take a knee and rub their hand back on forth on field turf, leaving a brief impression of their hand on the turf that owns the state’s attention during football season.

Here's the second of Fan Day Dispatches...we'll run them throughout the next week!

Jim Duval brought his son all the way from Montana to see Memorial Stadium.

“”He’s probably the biggest Husker fan in Montana,” said Vernon Benes, a director for Beck Ag in Omaha, who came down to fan day with his wife and son and the Duvals. “He’s got the ring tones and everything.”

Duval was raised in Orleans and Alliance but has been living in north-central Montana for the past 35 years. He was in Nebraska visiting friends and family and came to fan day to show his son Michael the stadium.

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