#Pat4Nebraska.

This simple hashtag nearly landed Wayne State College graduate Pat Jansen a job as the public address announcer for the Nebraska Corn­huskers.

In August, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln fired its pub­lic address announcer for alleg­edly milking money out of elderly women. Jansen, a Husker fan and PA announcer himself, saw an op­portunity in the job opening.

“I just started tweeting at them, asking about the job and telling them this is what I do,” Jansen said.

Jeremy Foote, assistant commu­nications director at UNL, contacted Jansen and told him that in order to get the job, he had to live locally in Lincoln. This posed a problem as Jansen lives in Los Angeles. Jansen asked John Johnson of Corn Nation to write a story about him to help with his campaign.

“It all started as a joke. Then I quickly came to the realization that I wanted to do this,” Jansen said.

While Jansen was on a trip to the East Coast to visit his wife, Johnson was contacted by Kelly Mosier, di­rector of digital communications for the Nebraska Athletic Department, and asked about Jansen. Mosier wanted to make sure that Jansen was serious and that the whole thing wasn’t a joke. After getting Jansen’s information, Mosier made Jansen an official candidate for the job.

“I’m a pretty competitive dude,” Jansen said.

The longer #Pat4Nebraska went on, the closer Jansen was to getting the job. However, he wasn’t chosen as the Huskers PA announcer.

When asked how the #Pat4Ne­braska campaign changed his life, Jansen said, “I have a lot more twitter followers now.”

Jansen currently is a stand-up comic in Los Angeles after doing the same for several years in New York City.

“I started doing stand-up comedy at 25, which is actually late to get a start in comedy,” Jansen said. “Doing comedy seems novel to people from Nebraska, and that’s just because they don’t see people doing it every day.”

Jansen, a broadcasting and jour­nalism major, had PA announcing experience at WSC from 2005-2007 and at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2007-2008. He worked in minor league baseball as the PA announcer for the Winston-Salem Warthogs before leaving for the communications office of the Patriot League, an NCAA Division I conference that includes the U.S. Army and Naval academies.

While working for the Patriot League, Jansen realized that he didn’t really want to work there and took up an opportunity to go on stage at an open mic night in New York City.

Being on stage was something Jansen enjoyed, so he frequented other open mic nights until he landed spots performing stand-up comedy in New York. Jansen cur­rently lives in Los Angeles where he is doing stand-up, acting and is even part of a sketch comedy group.

Jansen has attempted to score other PA roles, including an attempt to land the role of PA announcer for the Chicago Cubs. Jansen uses his great pipes for PA announcing in his comedy acts.

Jansen says it would be hard to go back to sports because he didn’t want to look like he quit comedy.

A frequent writer for Corn Na­tion, he is part of a comedic Ne­braska podcast that is called The Big Red Cobcast. Jansen records the Big Red Cobcast with fellow WSC graduate Ryan Tweedy, whose ac­claimed documentary about Husker football is titled “Through These Gates.”

“There are a big number of Husk­er fans here,” Jansen said about California.

Pat Jansen may not have gotten the PA job at Nebraska, but the #Pat4Nebraska lives on. If any­body was wondering: Pat says that he would take Mike Riley over Bo Pelini any day.