Dave Feit’s Greatest Huskers by the Numbers: 47

Dave Feit is counting down the days until the start of the 2025 season by naming the best Husker to wear each uniform number, as well as one of his personal favorites at that number. For more information about the series, click here. To see more entries, click here.

Greatest Husker to wear 47: Charley Brock, Center, 1936-1938

Honorable Mention: George Abel, LeRoy Etienne, Willie Greenlaw, Mike Stigge, Walker Ashburn, Jim Carstens, Matt Jarzynka, Andy Kadavy, Dusty Keiser, Josh Kohl, Dan Wingard, William Yancy

Dave’s Fave: Andy Kadavy, Linebacker, 2002-2006

Pop quiz: When Nebraska joined the Big Ten Conference in 2011, which of the 11 schools had Nebraska played the most?

Iowa makes sense, as the Hawkeyes are the closest Big Ten school to Lincoln. But the Hawkeyes are in second place behind…

Minnesota.

Before Nebraska joined the Big Ten, the Huskers and Gophers faced off 51 times. Overall, the two teams have met 64 times. For comparison, Nebraska has played longtime Big Eight/Big 12 conference foes Oklahoma State 43 times and Colorado 73 times.

The Golden Gophers claim seven national championships in football, five under legendary coach Bernie Bierman (1934, 1935, 1936, 1940 and 1941). A not-so-fun fact: Minnesota defeated Nebraska in each of its national championship seasons.

1904: 16-12 road loss
1934: 20-0 road loss
1935: 12-7 home loss
1936: 7-0 road loss*
1940: 13-7 road loss
1941: 9-0 road loss
1960: 26-14 home loss

*Long before there was Sooner Magic there was Gopher Magic. Tied at 0 with a minute to go in the game, Nebraska punted. Bud Wilkinson (who would go onto become a legendary coach at Oklahoma) fielded the kick at the 25. Hit almost immediately, Wilkinson turned and lateraled to Andy Uram. Uram raced 77 yards for the game winner.

The 1936 loss was a stinger, as Minnesota went on to win its third straight national championship. A chance for revenge would come in the 1937 season opener in Lincoln. The Cornhuskers would be without their successful head coach Dana X. Bible, who had left Nebraska for the University of Texas.

Minnesota halfback Harold Van Every carries the ball during Nebraska's upset win in 1937. | Cornhusker Yearbook

Lawrence “Biff” Jones started as Nebraska’s head coach and athletic director in 1937. Jones, a major in the U.S. Army, had previously coached at Oklahoma, LSU and Army.

The 1937 Minnesota game took place on an unseasonably warm 82-degree day in October. Minnesota did not appear to be affected, going 63 yards for a touchdown to take a 6-0 lead in the first five minutes of the game.

Nebraska’s game plan was to be extremely conservative on offense and rely on its defense. The Huskers punted often, sometimes on first or second down. That strategy seems odd, but it paid off. Early in the second quarter, a Husker punt was muffed by the Gophers. Junior center Charley Brock jumped on the ball at the Minnesota 22. On a fourth-and-inches play, quarterback John Howell followed Brock’s block into the end zone. Nebraska led 7-6, and the defense continued to deny the Gophers through three quarters.

However, the first play of the fourth quarter was a Minnesota field goal to retake the lead, 9-7. The rejuvenated Gopher defense forced a Husker punt on the next possession. The kick was fumbled and Nebraska’s Bill Callihan recovered it at the 40. Temporarily turning off his conservative plan, Biff Jones called a series of passing plays, including a 20-yard strike to Callihan that he carried into the end zone. Nebraska retook the lead, 14-7.

From there, Nebraska’s defense took over. Mighty Minnesota struggled to move the ball, and the Cornhuskers intercepted two Gopher passes in the fourth quarter.

They had done it! As the 1938 Cornhusker yearbook staff wrote: “it was on that day that a stout-hearted band of red shirts defeated the supposedly unbeatable Minnesota team.”

Charley Brock tackles an opposing ball carrier. | Cornhusker Yearbook

One of the MVPs of the game was Charley Brock. “Brock … gave an exhibition of all-around playing that will live long in the memory of the crowd that watched his efforts Saturday. He was all over the field,” wrote George Barton of the Minneapolis Tribune.

Brock was a three-sport athlete at Kramer High in Columbus (Neb.). In Lincoln, Brock found immediate success. He started every game from 1936-1938, playing center and linebacker. Brock earned All-Big Six honors all three years and was a first team All-American in 1937.

I love this write-up on Brock from the Daily Nebraskan in 1936: “Brock doesn’t confine his offensive play to merely snapping the ball back from center, but also beats the ball carrier down the field, blocking as he goes.”

Brock was drafted in the third round by the Green Bay Packers, where he excelled as a linebacker. Brock had 20 interceptions in 92 career games, which is still good for 20th place in the Packer history books*

*One ahead of former Nebraska defensive back Tyrone Williams, who played in 19 more games.

Brock is a member of the Nebraska High School Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. If Nebraska had a separate hall of fame for its amazing centers, Charley Brock’s name would be there as well.

Despite being in separate conferences, the Huskers and Gophers played every year from 1934-1954. That stretch – where the Gophers were a national power and the Huskers largely struggled – was very one-sided. When Bob Devaney took over in 1962, the series against Minnesota stood at 6-29-2. Devaney and Osborne flipped the script, going a combined 14-0 against Minnesota. The exclamation point was an 84-13 blowout in 1983, NU’s highest-scoring game of the last 100 years.

Since joining the Big Ten in 2011, Nebraska has played Minnesota 13 times. In 2014, the Twitter accounts for Minnesota’s mascot (Goldy the Gopher) and Nebraska-centric parody account “Faux Pelini” engaged in some friendly banter that led to the creation of the “$5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy.” The Chair Trophy has a broken wooden chair on top of a pedestal, with a five-dollar bill affixed under the seat.

As trophies go, it is ridiculous, silly, and ugly. And I LOVE it.

The Chair is everything that Nebraska fans were expecting when we joined the Big Ten – an object that looks like it came from a flea market, but with a fun backstory that is significant to both schools. That is what all of the other great Big Ten trophies (Floyd of Rosedale, Old Oaken Bucket, Little Brown Jug, Paul Bunyan’s Axe, etc.) have in common.

Sadly, the whereabouts of the original Chair Trophy are officially unknown.* After the 2015 win – Nebraska’s first the Chair Era – coach Mike Riley was photographed holding the trophy in the NU locker room. The trophy definitely came back to Lincoln with the team.

After that… No official record exists. The Chair was not – and still is not – recognized by the conference as an “official” trophy. My belief is the two schools were instructed by the league office to cease and desist acknowledging a homemade trophy did not meet (then) commissioner Jim Delany’s vision of what a rivalry trophy should represent. For reference, Delany did approve Nebraska’s two other trophy games – the aggressively bland (and corporate sponsored) Heroes Trophy and the Freedom Trophy, which has a big bronze flag sticking out of a mash up of Nebraska and Wisconsin’s stadiums.

The $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy with mini helmets for Minnesota and Nebraska. | $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy

Maybe if the Chair had been named the $5 Bits of Mom’s Apple Pie (or some other wholesome trope that the league’s lawyers would sign off on), the original version would still exist.

*Instead (per a reliable source who worked closely with the NU athletic department during the Riley era), the original Chair Trophy currently resides somewhere in the Lancaster County (Neb.) landfill.

But what is beautiful and good cannot be killed. The Chair Trophy has been re-created and currently exists as a traveling trophy between the fan bases. Every year, the good people at brokenchairtrophy.com run a competition between Husker and Gopher fans to see who can raise the most money for charity.

The $5 Bits of Broken Chair did not exist for Nebraska’s win in 1937, but the game is still one of the biggest upsets in school history – with a celebration to match. A Lincoln Star article from the Monday after the game recounts some of the revelry from “one of the wildest nights in (Lincoln’s) history.” Egg battles, fire hose wars, at least one automobile turned over and “snow” falling from hotel windows as guest “ripped open hundreds of pillows and dumped feathers” on the streets below.

As you might expect, alcohol played a big part in the celebration (Prohibition had ended less than four years earlier). Thirty men were arrested for intoxication, including one who “entered a Lincoln home, undressed, slipped on a pair of pajamas and gone to bed.” When the actual homeowners returned, the man explained that “he thought he was in Omaha.”

Compared to that, a broken chair seems pretty tame.

***

“When I write my book,” Nebraska linebacker Corey McKeon said in 2006, “the first chapter is going to be called ‘Andy Kadavy,’ and I’m putting his life story in the book.”

In this book, Andy Kadavy’s chapter is closer to the middle, but our tale about the teams, moments and people who have made Nebraska great would be incomplete without talking about his story.

Part of the challenge of telling Kadavy’s story is knowing where to start. This is probably why McKeon hasn’t finished his book yet. Do you start with the visor? The stubborn persistence? The secret? A career touched by three head coaches? The pain? The reward?

Andy Kadavy's bio introduction in Nebraska's 2007 Cotton Bowl Media Guide. | Nebraska Athletics

Heck, even something as basic as “start at the beginning” is a challenge. You see, the first Nebraska football roster that Andy Kadavy appears on is from 2005. He was a junior in 2005. So, let’s go back further.

After graduating from Seward (Neb.) High in 2002, Kadavy had options. Cal and New Mexico State had offered him football scholarships. But, like so many Nebraska kids, he dreamed of playing for Nebraska. Frank Solich gave him an opportunity to walk on as a fullback. This is Nebraska, we can’t have enough walk-on fullbacks!

Well… apparently there were limits. After spring practice in 2003, Kadavy found himself near the bottom of the 10 or so fullbacks on the team. Coach Tim Albin met with him and said thanks, but no thanks. Stung by the rejection, Kadavy decided he wasn’t done yet. So, he just kept showing up. To every workout, all summer long. He kept showing up while working multiple jobs to be able to pay for school.

During a weightlifting session, Kadavy was chatting with new defensive coordinator Bo Pelini. He begged Bo for a chance on defense and ran with it. That fall, an offensive grad assistant was confused when he saw the former 10th-string fullback working with the linebackers. “Hey, hasn’t that guy been cut?” he asked. A little while later, Kadavy squared up one of Albin’s fullbacks. Albin smiled and told him “Good job.” He played on kickoff coverage against Texas A&M in 2003.

At the end of the 2003 season, Solich and his staff were fired. Bill Callahan – who did not have a reputation as a friend of the walk-on program – was hired. Kadavy kept grinding – and more importantly, kept his mouth shut – throughout 2004. He played in three games but did not record a tackle. But Kadavy was named Defensive Scout Team Player of the Year. Feeling confident in his place on the team, it was time to come clean to the coaches.

Andy Kadavy is blind in his right eye.

It started as some blurriness in high school. A specialist diagnosed Coats’ disease, which causes blood vessels behind the retina to leak. A tumor formed behind his eyeball. I’ll spare you the full details of the multiple – and ultimately unsuccessful – treatment attempts (which involved lasers, needles, cryogenic freezing and surgeries while he was awake). As Kadavy told the Lincoln Journal Star in 2006, “It was the most painful thing I’ve gone through. It was disgusting. It hurt so bad.”

The visor on his helmet? It was not for appearances or flair. It was to ensure that a wayward finger didn’t leave him completely blind. Andy hated it, because he felt it drew attention to himself. Other than truly needing to keep his head on a swivel, Kadavy was able to play just fine without sight in one eye.

Andy Kadavy raises his helmet and linebacker linebacker Bo Ruud pumps a fist as Nebraska head coach Bill Callahan prepares to accept the Big 12 North championship trophy after the Huskers' 2006 win over Colorado. | Bruce Thorson-Imagn Images

Callahan and staff didn’t shy away when Kadavy told them the truth. They knew they had a valuable player. In 2005, he again earned Defensive Scout Team Player of the Year and appeared in four games.

Andy Kadavy finished his career in 2006 as a solid backup linebacker and special teams player. At the start of the 2006 season, Kadavy’s senior season, he was placed on scholarship along with two other in-state walk-ons (Brandon Rigoni and Ben Eisenhart).

My apologies to Corey McKeon for borrowing his chapter. But if he’s looking for a ghost writer for finish that book, I know a guy…

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