Grant Wistrom

"First of all, I never thought I'd be able to play, you know, Division I football. And actually, growing up as a kid, I was always an Oklahoma fan and big Barry Switzer, Brian Bosworth, Jemeil Hall, all those guys and you know just if I was a little kid that's where I was gonna go play football. But when it came around to being recruited, you know a lot of schools started sending letters and calling and… But then you know when I met Coach Osborne and came up here and saw the Nebraska program you know I was really impressed with it. And all they basically, probably up 'til week or two before signing, I was pretty set that I was gonna go to Michigan.

I liked Nebraska a lot but I really thought that I really belonged in Michigan. And then it was just a strange thing. One morning I woke up and I said no, I'm gonna go to Nebraska. And I don't know what made up my mind, you know, what made the decision for me but I'm definitely glad I chose to come here to Nebraska.

When I came up here for the spring game of my junior year and to me, when I met him he's just… he's an impressive man. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's 'cause, you know, I was a high school football player getting recruited for college football but when I met him I was just like wow, you know, Coach Osborne. And what really struck me is how tall he was. I mean, he's a pretty tall guy and that's probably what I remember about him the most from you know… first meeting him and getting to talk to him. And just right away you can tell he's really a genuine person.

I can't remember the exact word. It was just always at, always at the bottom of the list was football. You know, it was always, you know, God, family, school. You know? And then, you know, football. Maybe not in that order necessarily but football was always last and that's the way he practiced what he preached. All the time. It was your school work is taken care of before you ever worry about what's done on the football field.

And you make sure your things are in order at home before you have to focus on football. And you always trust finding this spiritual relationship with uh you know whatever, whatever you believed in while you're at college and it was the things that he was there to teach you, that football was the least important of all those things."