Team Effort to Unfurl Huge Banner

LINCOLN, Neb., Sept.11, 2009 -- It took more than 85,000 Cornhusker fans to fill Memorial Stadium in Lincoln for last week's season opener -- but only 14 to make a super-sized statement of Husker pride.

And those 14 were engineering students -- the bearers of a tradition, who ensured that the debut of the giant "GO BIG RED" banner went up as planned.

At 80 feet by 60 feet, the banner -- when it's unfurled -- covers several hundred seats in two sections of the stadium and boasts letters taller than linebackers.

"It's unreal," said sophomore Bryce Ebel, one of the engineering students charged with operating the banner. "You get the hairs standing on the back of your neck."

Added Bill Poppe, another engineering student: "Most people come here and they go, 'Oh, it's the cheerleaders, it's the football team, it's the whole crowd.' But the College of Engineering gets their little bit with our massive flag."

The new banner replaces one that said "The Power of Red," which was used for the past few years. When the old one was too tattered to use again, the engineering college and athletic department partnered to get a new one. Thanks to a sturdier weight of fabric, the new banner weighs about 250 pounds, roughly twice what the old one did.

The extra weight makes the process of getting the banner unfurled a bit more difficult.

It all starts underneath the stadium's east section, where the banner is kept rolled up in a ball in a giant storage cage. Seven or so of the engineering students pick it up and move it out of the cage and into the hallway underneath the stadium.

Then it's time to unroll it, turning the ball into an 80-foot-long pile of fabric. The students make sure they've found the top and bottom edges of the banner, pick it up and snake their way out from the storage area, up a flight of stairs to their destination: the base of the east stadium's student section.

Once there, they split off, with some students staying at the bottom of the section to mind the top and bottom edges, and others heading for the stairs to make sure the outer edges stay taut.