At age twenty-eight, when Tom Osborne agreed to join Bob Devaney s full-time coaching staff at the University of Nebraska, he resolved to be a head coach by the time he reached age thirty-five. Little did he know that this goal would chart his course toward becoming one of the nation s premier football coaches. Six years later in 1972, Devaney named Osborne as head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.In high school and college, Osborne had been an outstanding athlete in his own right. He went on to play professional football and to earn his master s and doctorate degrees in educational...