The Graduates

Brownson said there were times when he did not care to live out of his gold Toronado. There were other times, however, when he had felt there were "more worthwhile things than paying rent." He said he had almost totaled out his living quarters late one night (or early one morning) in West Omaha when he hit an icy spot, slammed over a retaining curb, hit a sign and jumped a 10-foot drainage ditch. When he appeared in court, the spectators recognized him and applauded. He told the judge he fell asleep at the wheel. He pleaded not guilty and paid a $10 fine.

The story made the local papers, he said, but he got the car fixed himself rather than go through insurance channels because he didn't want his father to get wind of it. His father was back in Shenandoah, Iowa, "the nursery capital of the world," and did not always appreciate Van's adventures in paradise.

"A lot of guys get into trouble," he said, smiling, his leg slung over a chair, "but I am the one who always gets caught." His lean (6'3", 195 pounds) lizard's body was covered with a Hawaiian shirt, faded red Bermudas and a pair of two-tone blue-suede string-up shoes with square toes. "Ninety percent of the players drink beer. I drink quite a bit. I wonder sometimes how many brain cells all that beer has killed."

For the record, Van Brownson was listed as a senior. He had completed four years of football at Nebraska and had been drafted in the eighth round by the Baltimore Colts. For two years—as a sophomore and junior—he had shared the quarterbacking with Jerry Tagge, and they had made a formidable, even spectacular, duo, unbeaten in 19 games. But injuries nagged Brownson, and in the spring before his senior year he suffered a shoulder separation. After that Tagge pretty much had it to himself, and Nebraska won 13 more. The experience of stepping from spotlight into shadow cost Brownson a dear thing, he said.

"I lost my confidence. I never lost my determination—I'm as determined as ever—but I lost my confidence. I lost confidence in my body. I always liked contact. I liked running the ball. Now I was getting hurt. My elbow, my shoulder. I got bursitis. I lost confidence in my passing. I knew where to put it, but I wasn't getting it there on time. I thought, 'If I could just throw as well as I did in high school.' "

His strikingly clear blue eyes, so blue as to appear luminescent, darted back and forth. In the context of his experience, one might have said he appeared shell-shocked, except that his tongue was facile. He said he had come to the point where he had abandoned all pretenses.

"No," he said, "I don't want to go to class. No, I don't go to class. I don't need a degree to play football." He said he had attended only 10 classes in the fall semester, all in the same subject—the professor threatened to drop him and that would have cost him his eligibility. Since the season, he said, he had gone to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and to the Colts' rookie camp in Tampa. He spent some time in L.A.

The trouble with being a fun lover, he said, is that you get a reputation. Rumors start. They get all the way back to Shenandoah, Iowa. He said that Devaney had put up with a lot. "He'd hear rumors and he'd call me in. We were in the Suite IV Lounge in Omaha one night to see this hypnotist. He got me up on the stage, doing crazy things. I was out, but not from hypnotism. I yelled some profanity. They had my picture in the paper on the stage. Devaney called me in. "You can't go around making a spectacle of yourself,' he said. Actually, he was very understanding."

Brownson said that his eventual comedown in football was as much a blow to his father as it was to him. His father, a tractor and implement dealer, was living in Lincoln when Van was born and the father, an alumnus himself, caught the passion. "He was more frustrated than I was. He'd continually say things—'if you had only been in there....' How could it matter? We never lost. I heard he went to the coaches a couple times. A real pain.

"I wouldn't change anything I've done," he said. "Nothing at all. I want to live my life the way I want to live it, and if others don't agree, well...." He shrugged and lounged back in the chair. "In many ways these have been the most enjoyable four years of my life. I've made so many friends. Fraternity guys, football players. It's not just eat, drink and be merry. I worry about tomorrow. I don't worry about getting married. I came to college to get smarter, not dumber. But I worry about whether I'm going to make it professionally, whether I'll be economically stable. I'd like to make it in pro football. I wonder if I can. If I will. What I will do if I don't. I think about those things.