Here I am standing in front of the Bob Devaney Sports Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Everyone from Nebraska knows the "real" Bob Devaney, their legendary football coach. I'm not he. I do remember once when I was a graduate student at Berkeley in the late 1960s being stopped by a Nebraska State Trooper while driving along Interstate 80 in mid-Nebraska. My hair was a little longer, I was driving a dilapidated VW bus, there was a Berkeley sitcker on the rear window.... Anyway, after looking at my driver's license, the Trooper asked "Are you any relation to....." Well, I told a little lie and here I am today, not in jail. All thanks to the real Bob Devaney.

Which reminds me, I once gave a talk on a Friday evening in 1989 at the University of Nebraska. This was a talk on complex dynamics that was aimed at the general public. Amazingly, hundreds of people showed up. I noted a lot of very husky guys in the audience, all wearing bright red sweatshirts with a big N on them. During my introduction, the moderator announced that everyone in the audience knew the "real" Bob Devaney, so given the fact that I was speaking on complex dynamics, he said, I must therefore be the "imaginary" Bob Devaney.

I do think that it was still very nice of them to name a building after me..... don't you?


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