Oddly, almost exactly as old as this
border conflict between these states (which one must presume bubbled up some time before it landed in the lap of the high court) is the
contest between the
football teams associated with two of their most storied universities. The first match on record between the teams representing the
State University of Iowa and the
State University of Nebraska occurred on November 26, 1891, and in the roughly century-and-a-quarter since, the teams have played another 47 times. Apparently Nebraska has run away with far and away the most wins, but records of the old games are inconsistent -- Wikipedia for example
offers one accounting, whilst the "College Football Data Warehouse"
offers another. Well, they mostly agree, more so on the recent ones.
As to the 1892 game, the official version seems to be that it ended in a 10-10
tie. But it must have been something of a remarkable thing, to play across the
state line in a time before
motorcars, when the players would need to board a
train to take them to the opposing town, and thence possibly a
horse and buggy to the
field. Interestingly, as well, the
Omaha Bee in 1893
refers to their opposing team as "the boys from over the river" (and though the towns hosting play varied somewhat, they tended to be those quite close to that river indeed). And so, a court's ruling as to where the river drew the boundary may have subtly changed the distance of one team or the other to the border. And incidentally, the Iowa team was called the "
Hawkeyes" from the start, but the Nebraska team created in 1890 was called the "Old Gold Knights." In 1892, the name was rather inexplicably changed to the far less glorifying "Bugeaters." And in 1893, a school newspaper article mocking the
corn-planting penchant of their now-established opponent Iowans, deemed the Nebraska team "Cornhuskers." Surprisingly enough, that eventually stuck.