For This Couple, It's 363 Nebraska Football Games and Still Counting

By Chris Anderson

Willis and Fran Regier are pretty much like any other Husker football couple. They go to the game each week, making the drive from Bellevue, Neb. They know everyone in their West Stadium section and wouldn't trade their seats for anything.

What makes Willis, 90, and Fran, 94, unique among Husker fans, is that they have been going to games since they first purchased season tickets in 1950. They bought their first season tickets soon after World War II, have sat in the same seats in the North end of the West Stadium since 1950 and have been loyal contributors to the program since 1960. Willis said he got Fran hooked on the Huskers after taking her to Memorial Stadium on Nov. 4, 1943, to see the Huskers face off against Iowa in a blizzard. "I knew if she sat through that game, she would be a fan then," he said.

363 Games and Counting

There are many families who have had season tickets throughout the sellout streak.  After all, that's what makes Nebraska special and an NCAA record 300 sellouts possible.  And there are likely a few other fans, like Willis and Fran, who have seen all or nearly all 300 games in the sellout streak (and we want to hear from you, too). Just click here, enter your name and e-mail address, select "Huskers.com content" on the "Area of Interest" drop-down box and share a memory with us in the "Request description" content area. After that, hit the "submit support request" and send us your thoughts.

The Regiers, season ticket holders 12 years before the first sellout against Missouri on Nov. 3, 1962, are indeed special fans because they seen an additional 63 home games beyond the 300 played in Memorial Stadium under head coaches Bill Glassford, Pete Elliott and Bill Jennings.

You would think that rain, sleet, snow or a family occasion would deter the couple from at least a few games in the 48-year sellout streak.  But, according to the couple, they have missed just one game in the 300-game streak. They attended their son Bill's wedding on Sept. 21, 1991, when Nebraska played host to Washington. Luckily, a television set was available at the reception so Willis and Fran could watch the game, but the 36-21 loss to the Huskies in their absence still hurts a bit.

Fewer still, and perhaps no other, had the farsighted vision that Willis must have had that inspired him to keep every ticket stub from those games.

He had them all, and then some.  Some of the tickets (from section 30, row 20, seats 9 and 10), even have the scores written on them. Win or lose, Willis kept them in a shoe box for more than a half century. In 1994, Willis loaned those tickets to the athletic department in order to make a 200th sellout poster. This season, when again contacted by athletics to see if he kept the tradition going, Willis donated them to the department.  This enabled local photographer Alan Jackson to take the photo for the commemorative 300th sellout print, which every season ticket holder will receive as a gift from the athletic department.  The tickets are displayed in a trophy case in the West Stadium, along with the throwback jerseys the team is wearing against Lousiana-Lafayette.

The Early Days

Willis and Fran were not able to attend many Husker football games during college, because money and jobs were hard to find.  Fran, whose parents farmed in Red Cloud, began college in 1934 and graduated from the Teacher's College with a business degree in 1939. Willis, a Hastings native, started at UNL in 1937, graduating with a degree in architecture in 1942.  Fran worked in private homes to meet room and board requirements while Willis worked at Magee's Clothing Store at 12th and O Streets in downtown Lincoln.  He started as a paper bailer, making 25 cents an hour. Later, Willis was promoted to a sales position, assisting in the ladies' accessories department and in the boys' department toward the end of his five years of service with Magee's.

They met on a blind date in November of 1939.  Fran was a "stand-in" for another girl who was originally to go out with Willis. They went to see nationally known evangelist E. Stanley Jones at the Nebraska Union because it was free. The happy couple later married on June 15, 1941, at St. Paul Methodist Church in Lincoln - 68 blissful years ago. Four years younger than Fran, Willis said he "married an older woman because a woman's life expectancy is longer.  And so far it's working!"

Willis was still in school when they wed. Fran worked in the Temple Building in the Architecture Library while Elmer Magee graciously raised Willis' salary to 40 cents an hour to help them make ends meet.   Following a military ordinance depot project in Sidney while living in Kimball, Willis was an inspector of B-26 and B-29 bombers at Glenn L. Martin plant in Bellevue.  Willis was drafted in 1944, just after their first child, Diane, was born. 

When Uncle Sam Called, Willis Answered

Willis proudly served his country until the end of the war as a member of the 736th Field Artillery Battalion, which was attached to General Patton's Third Army. Willis sailed to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth - the largest ship in the world at the time. They were allowed to sail unescorted as the Queen was thought to be faster than enemy submarines.

Willis' younger brother, Don, was a member of the 106th Infantry Division, which was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. On Good Friday morning of 1945, Willis' unit traveled past the POW camp where Don was being held near Kassel, Germany. Just two hours prior, the Germans began retreating and had vacated the camp. Don recognized the passing battalion as Willis' group, and managed to stop the chaplain and slip him a piece of paper with his name and serial number to give Willis. Willis got permission from his commander to take a fellow soldier and a Jeep to go back to the camp and see his brother, thus becoming the first uncaptured Americans to be allowed into the camp. Willis shared his C-rations with the starving soldiers, which consisted of beef stew, beef hash, and chicken noodle soup made by Swanson in Omaha.

In the line of fire at other times, Willis was fortunate to suffer only a torn raincoat by a German .88 shell fragment and returned to Fran and Nebraska as a staff sergeant. Margot Regier Cook was born nine months after Willis returned from the war. Twin boys, Phil and Bill, followed a few years later.  All four of the Regier children attended UNL, with Diane, Phil and Bill earning bachelor's and advanced degrees.

Willis went on to own and operate Willis Regier, Inc., an architecture company located in Omaha for many years. He retired and closed the business in 1980 but served as a project architect with the Corps of Engineers until 1990. He continues to work with the city of Bellevue and Dean Wayne Drummond of the UNL College of Architecture as needed. 

Nebraska Fans for Life ...

Through the years, Willis and Fran enjoyed traveling to road and bowl games and to Oklahoma and Missouri games in particular, where they have close friends. The Regiers were even honored at an Oklahoma game in Norman along with an Oklahoma couple. Some of Willis and Fran's favorite memories from Husker football games, in no particular order, include:

• The beautiful view of the state capitol in the 1950s from West Stadium, where the Regiers' first season tickets were located (cost was $3 per ticket).
• Watching the balloons when they are released after the first score.
• The flyovers before the games and the joint team prayer and fireworks after games.
• The way fans stay to applaud as the team leaves the field. ("We were in the section that began that tradition," Fran said.)
• Traveling to every Big Eight stadium, and five or six bowl games. ("Once a Mizzou fan stole my hat after a game in Columbia," Willis remembered.)
• Obtaining a piece of the goalposts that were torn down in 1959 after the Huskers broke the Sooners' 74-game winning streak in a 25-21 upset win.
• Riding the train from Omaha to games($5 from South Omaha to the stadium).
• Meeting Lynn Swann at the Colorado game on Oct. 29, 1994, when Swann interviewed them from the sideline as part of the 200th consecutive celebration.

Willis and Fran have seen games coached by eight different Husker head coaches and made observations about many. They "liked Devaney's sense of humor"; admire Coach Osborne for his "sense of honor and for beginning the Teammates program" (for which they both are still mentors); count Ron Brown as a good friend and admire him as a "conscientious Christian who has helped many players find their way in life"; and think "Bo is a wonderful father and a superb football coach."

Although asked repeatedly, Willis held firmly to his belief that his favorite game "is still the current game" and added that Memorial Stadium is a place unlike any other to watch a game - in part because of his fellow fans who helped build the incredible tradition of sellouts.

The final thought of this dedicated Husker couple?  "Nebraska fans are every bit as good as we think we are."