By the time this lands in your inbox, Nebraska volleyball will be a couple of days removed from Wrigley Field.
That feels like enough time to do more than just rehash the whole thing, because most people who wanted to read about the moisture, the towels, the delay and the eventual suspension probably already have. Nebraska and Missouri played 18 points before the court became too much of a concern to continue. That is the TL;DR version. The longer version has more frustration in it because the scene was good enough to make the ending feel worse.
There were 43,067 people at Wrigley (and most of them were in red). To no one’s surprise, there were Nebraska fans everywhere. “Go Big Red” chants echoed through the crowd even before the Huskers took the court. By the time they did, all of those feelings we had three years ago at Volleyball Day in Nebraska came pouring back.
Then the match stopped.
“This was amazing,” Nebraska coach Dani Busboom Kelly said after the match had been called. “I applaud the effort, but there’s a reason our sport’s indoors.”
The idea was big and the setting was memorable. The crowd showed up, and that visual mattered when we talk about growing the game. Unfortunately, no amount of history could overcome the relative humidity as temperatures dropped in Chicago. The playing surface became the story, which is never what you want when the whole point is to showcase the sport.
So, where does Nebraska go from there? Home, finally.
