Red to blue

It is that time of year in Lincoln when all the attention is on the start of the University of Nebraska football season. If you've never lived in Lincoln, it's hard to imagine how fixated this State is on college football. There are two seasons here, football and spring practice.

With the first game scheduled for Saturday, I thought it might be an appropriate time to point out the connection between the Lincoln Police Department and the University of Nebraska football team. A couple of senior members of the department, Sgt. Bill Kuhlman and Capt. Dave Beggs, helped me brainstorm everyone we could think of who was both a Lincoln police officer and a Cornhusker football letterman. No doubt we missed some Bugeaters, but here's our alphabetical list:

1. Dale Adams
   
2. Barry Alvarez
   
3. Alvin Banks
   
4. Joe Buda
   
5. John Clarke
   
6. Dan Delaney
   
7. Mike Eger
   
8. Gail Gade
   
9. Bruce Hauge
   
10. Jim Hawkins
    
11. Ron Kirkland
    
12. Jim McCord
    
13. Donnie McGhee
    
14. Harry Meagher
    
15. Wayne Meylan
    
16. Mike Osborne
    
17. John Pitts
    
18. Dennis Richnafsky
    
19. P.J. Schneider

There would be many more if we had included those players who worked part time as police officers over the summer (a quaint practice the persisted until 1975), but those listed are all Cornhuskers who were actually employed full time as regular police officers.

Some of these officers were short-timers, but others worked long careers to retirement. Hall of famer Wayne Meylan was probably the most successful football player of this group. Several of these men were very successful police officers. Two of the more accomplished were Gail Gade and Dale Adams. Gade left LPD as a lieutenant to become the Univeristy's chief of police. Adams, after serving as LPD's assistant chief and interim chief of police, finished his law enforcement career as the four-term sheriff of Lancaster County.

Two former Huskers wear LPD blue right now. John Clarke earned his letter in 1990. He is a canine handler assigned to the Center Team. Three-year letterman John Pitts was a member of the Cornhusker national championship teams of 1970 and 1971. John is our self-defense instructor and in my opinion he is the toughest person on the Lincoln Police Department. He is also an exceptional citizen, husband, father, grandfather, and an extraordinary gentleman by every measure.

Saturday, three days shy of his 34th anniversary as a Lincoln police officer, you will find John Pitts with an Acme Thunderer directing traffic at the intersection of 10th & O Streets, as he has done for every football season since Richard Nixon was President. John was directing traffic in the heat, cold, rain, wind, and snow at Nebraska football games before 112 of our 317 officers were born. Starting in over 200 games earns him a place in our hall of fame!