Sports bar elicits macho posturing

DECATUR, Ill. -- The usually uneventful pastime of watching TV in a suburban sports bar has somehow produced tough-guy posturing from Decatur resident and Cornhusker football fan Christopher DeLong, sources close to the 28-year-old revealed Thursday.

"Chris is passionate about his sports, but ever since we started going to the Sports Column ... man, he's taken on this whole new personality," said Kari DeLong, his wife of four years. "Sometimes when we're in there on Saturdays, I think he's going to get in a fight, he gets so wound up."

The Sports Column, in the Briar Center shopping center that serves as an economic anchor for the south Decatur development of Briarwood, is known for its attractive wait staff wearing referee jerseys. It also has legendary buffalo wild wing sauce and 48 large TV sets perpetually tuned to sports. It was converted from a karaoke bar in 1997.

The couple, formerly of Palmyra, began frequenting the establishment in August 2001 along with a few other expatriated Nebraskans on game days. DeLong's discovery of the bar "has brought out the competitive animal" in him, sources said.

"You should see him on Saturday afternoons," said Nykkee Pearson, a Sports Column waitress. "He walks in wearing this red sweatshirt that's too small for him and immediately starts looking for someone wearing the other team's colors. He won't talk to them directly, right? But he'll say stuff really loud so they can hear, like: 'Time for a serious ass-kicking, Jayhawks! Come out and get your whuppin!' "

Pearson said it appeared to her that DeLong's bravado grew exponentially throughout the 2001 college football season, as Nebraska continued to pile up wins and the number of Cornhusker fans in the bar steadily grew on Saturdays.

"It's good for business, I guess," the 21-year-old waitress said. "But how anyone could produce such alpha-male chest-thumping in this place is beyond me. I don't think anyone's ever noticed that we're in a strip mall, and next door to a Hallmark store. We even have a kid's menu."

DeLong, an occupational therapist at a Decatur hospital when he is not a drunken braggart, said he often struggles with living "behind enemy lines" in Illinois, though NU and the Illini have not played each other since 1986. DeLong added that because Nebraska gets "little to no respect" from fans around the country, it is up to him and other far-flung fans to vociferously defend the honor of their team from afar.

"I tell ya, it's tough being a Husker fan in Big Ten country," he said. "I really didn't understand the hatred people had for Nebraska until I moved to Decatur. Hell, I can't even park my red Dodge Ram with Husker mud flaps at the mall any more without someone giving me some evil eye.

"Well, this is where I get even with those a-holes every week. Me and the Huskers always get the last laugh."

During last fall's Kansas State-Nebraska game, in fact, DeLong coined several derogatory names for the Wildcats, which he shared with the rest of the bar. "Woooo hoooo -- way to go, you Purple Wussies," he yelled after NU safety Willie Amos intercepted a KSU pass and returned it deep into Wildcat territory. "Another great call by the Mildcats! Get a load of my Willie, you losers!"

He and his wife, however, were noticeably absent from the Colorado game, a 62-36 NU loss that ended Nebraska's drive for the Big 12 title. They later said that they had returned to Palmyra to visit friends and family for Thanksgiving.

"It's probably best he wasn't around," Pearson said later. "Some guys wearing black and gold were looking for him in here that day, and I just know there would have been trouble."