The Graduates

"A lot of Sundays after a game I'd get up early and go over to the hospital to watch the autopsies," said Linebacker Pat Morell. "After a while the pathologist let me help—I got to remove a liver, or a kidney, and put it on a dish to be examined. They let me in the operating room to watch open-heart surgery. I got to see kidney stones removed. And a vasectomy. The urologist let me cut some sutures and hold back the incision while he worked.

"A lot of guys are filled up with college after four years, but I'm not. I'm anxious to get started again. Medicine excites me. I'm intrigued with the possibilities of having that kind of ability. For a long time I hoped that at this point in my life I would have been drafted by a pro football team and be all geared up to play pro ball, but I don't worry about that anymore. I came to realize I didn't want to make football my life."

The 1971 Nebraska football brochure describes Morell as 6'2", 215 pounds, "big, tough, mobile and aggressive," a linebacker with a "potential for stardom." The adjoining picture shows him to be clean-cut and clear-eyed with enough strength in his jaw for an alert publicist to suggest "determination." Morell's career at Nebraska is now over. He played well enough to letter three times. He never became a star. For three years he was "almost" a regular; for the last two he marked time behind his friend, Bob Terrio, who had come from the West Coast to steal his thunder. Morell's name did not become a household word in Nebraska. People did not stop him on the street unless he was walking with his buddy Jerry Tagge, the quarterback. When they were roommates their junior year he got an occasional kick out of pretending he was Tagge when the girls called at 2 a.m.

But if waves of applause did not carry Pat Morell into adulthood, an uncommon sense of priority and direction did. He had applied and been accepted into the university's medical school at Omaha. Following an accelerated program, he said, he would have his M.D. in three years.

Morell had been married for almost a year. His wife Debbi is a breathtakingly lovely girl with eyes the color of sea-water ("greeny blue," she says), and together they have found a lot to like in the world. They found they like Lincoln ("really nice people, nice-size town," says Pat); they talk about living there. They like to do things together. They even like their parents. They like going to see his folks in Kansas City ("My father is a postal inspector, and the man I admire most in the world") and can't wait to get down to Broken Bow to see hers. Not only does Debbi have a beautiful face, but she has an exquisitely level head. She encourages his studies. She keeps his shirt with the little OB (for Orange Bowl) 71 on the front whiter than white and their apartment spotless. There are books (An Introduction to Art, A History of Classical Music, The Autobiography of Malcolm X) and paintings (a large print by Luongo; an original, by a friend, showing horses being led to a race, that hangs over their bed. "There are just so many walls," says Debbi). Missing is the clutter of Nebraska football paraphernalia. Only a couple of team pictures.

Debbi herself was graduating the next day, with a degree in business. She said she planned to be a CPA. She had, in the past, helped some of Pat's teammates. She was capable of being very serious. But she was also capable of giving Pat a hard time in Miami when he wanted to sit by the pool and read The Godfather when she wanted to run on the beach. Her argument was that he had already read it once.

"Three outstanding things happened to me in these four years," Morell said as they sat together on the sofa of the apartment, consciously touching. "One, I got married. Two, I got admitted to med school. Three, I was on two national-championship football teams. Some guys might give you that in reverse order, depending on who's with them at the time"—he looked at Debbi—"but I am very, very happy to be married."

Morell said that his disappointment at not being a regular had been keen. "There was so much talent here that first year. Sixty guys, all of them outstanding—All-America, All-State, all this or that. I remember going to Valentino's for a pizza one night with Tagge. He happened to mention that he had been a high school All-America in football. But not only that, he was All-America in basketball, too, and had been offered a pro baseball contract. So many outstanding guys.

"You see things, being less than first string. Nebraska fans, as good as they are, can be as fickle as anybody. If you're in there with the second team and the opponent scores, they start yelling, 'Get the scrubs out.' I experienced that. But I guess I never really reconciled myself to being second team.

"I was bitter for a while, but looking back I feel I really did contribute. And it was worthwhile contributing, too. Football at Nebraska is like pro football. Devaney treated us like men. We responded like men. It can be the other way. It's the same with college life. It can be a farce. You can get by without studying. You can cheat. Some guys cheat all the way through school. Or you can lose your identity. It's a big school. Some classes are so big you don't even sign your name, you give your Social Security number. But you get what you put into it. I thought my education was as good as I could have gotten anywhere, because I put the time and effort into it."