The following essay was written to accompany Spectacle, a sports-and-visual culture exhibition at Austin Peay University's New Gallery in 2020. At the moment I sat down to begin this essay, Emre Can created a moment of wonder in Leverkusen, Germany. The Borussia Dortmund midfielder was between 30 and 40 yards from goal and had options.… Continue reading Spectacle
Author: brandonlvogel
Nebraska Spring Football Preview 2017
FADE IN: EXT. HAWKS CHAMPIONSHIP CENTER – DAY One hundred-plus hopefuls in red and white stretch on the green turf. It is cold and cloudy; not quite spring, but not winter either. Coaches in sweatshirts walk up and down the rows of players, saying hello again, cracking a joke, offering encouragement. A football season begins… Continue reading Nebraska Spring Football Preview 2017
Does Nebraska Need A Rival?
The man leans against a post in downtown Chadron. He’s wearing the northwest Nebraska uniform for the month of November – insulated coveralls and a gimme seed cap. Even though this is in 1987, this is still more or less the northwest Nebraska uniform for the month of November. Some things never change. Others do.… Continue reading Does Nebraska Need A Rival?
The Option
It starts in a dirt patch in front of my grandparents’ house. It’s a good-sized square of earth between the barn, the garden, the garage, the bunkhouse, the old gray barn that’s going to fall down and the henhouse. Depending on how many people are over, it is either the driveway or the yard, lit… Continue reading The Option
Drew the Bones
It was hot and the Huskers were about to lose. None of the 75,943 people making their way into Memorial Stadium on Sept. 7, 1985, could escape the first fact. None could’ve known the second, though that day’s visitor, Florida State, had beaten Nebraska on its home field four years earlier. But this was the… Continue reading Drew the Bones
A Sweet and Surreal Saturday Night
A young man, covered in head-to-toe bronze paint rode the long escalator down to the main floor of CenturyLink Center in Omaha on Saturday. He was a living Heisman Trophy on his way to somehow help salute retiring Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne. If you got within 10 feet of him you could smell the… Continue reading A Sweet and Surreal Saturday Night
No. 4 – Trackside Lounge
“On the TV the announcer is predicting how the race will be run and famous people are asked their opinions. I wait for a twinkle in my brain but nothing happens. Still it’s all so exciting I want to talk to someone about it– say how making a bet is like falling in love or… Continue reading No. 4 – Trackside Lounge
Brandon Vogel 