“I’m just not doing it yet.”

When they met in agronomy class at Nebraska, Hahn gave Foltz a strange look. Aren’t you a “city kid” from Grand Island? No, no.

To prove it, Foltz could’ve told him about his Family and Consumer Science teacher in middle school. When Mrs. B said she grew up on a farm, Sam quizzed her. What kind of tractors did you have? What kind of chores did you do? He was impressed only when he found out she castrated pigs.

“That is so cool, Mrs. B. That is just so cool.”

At Nebraska, Foltz and Hahn became best friends, teasing each other about rainfall. Down there in DeWitt, Foltzy said, it’s always raining. We don’t get nothing in Greeley. We just plant it in the sand.

“Basically, we argued about who had it worse,” Hahn says. “That’s what farmers do.”

Every semester, Hahn went to his adviser and requested the same schedule as Foltz. They studied together on the sixth floor of Memorial Stadium, looking down on the big red “N” at midfield. It wasn’t all work.