Bruce Dunning has come to expect a collect call from “James Wilder” during the week of the Nebraska-Missouri football game. It is something of an annual occurrence.

The call isn’t really from “James Wilder,” however. It is from Jim Pillen.

Dunning can laugh about the call now. But in late November of 1978, there was nothing funny about a reference to “James Wilder” as far as he and Pillen were concerned.

The Missouri running back rushed for 181 yards and scored four touchdowns in a 35-31 victory against second-ranked Nebraska in the final game of the regular season. With Wilder carrying the load, Missouri dashed the Cornhuskers’ hopes of playing for a national championship.

“It was tough,” Dunning said recently, looking back over the years.

The previous week, Nebraska had upset top-ranked Oklahoma 17-14. A victory against Missouri would have meant a chance at Penn State in the Orange Bowl, for the title. Instead, Nebraska was stuck with a rematch against an Oklahoma team coach Barry Switzer has described as his best.

The first Oklahoma game was Dunning’s best. The senior strongside linebacker was credited with 19 tackles. Unfortunately, the Missouri game was “one of the worst I ever played,” he said. In seven days, he experienced the high point and the low point of his Cornhusker career.

Pillen, also a senior in 1978, has said he doesn’t remember individual games during his career, except for that one. “I can see where Jim thinks about it,” said Dunning. “You do think about it.

“That cost Tom (Osborne) a national championship, or a shot at it.”

Even so, the passing of time has shown Osborne’s wisdom, regularly imparted to those who played for him. In life’s endeavors the journey is more important than the destination.

Nebraska was an important part of Dunning’s journey, “a very special five years,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. It was just a great time in my life. It meant a lot to me to get the opportunity to play football, to fulfill a dream and a goal for me.”

His dream wasn’t necessarily to play at Nebraska, however. The Cornhuskers didn’t seek him out. He had scholarship offers from Northern Arizona, Wyoming and San Jose State following his senior season at Arvada (Colo.) West High School. But his father encouraged him to consider Nebraska.

Roger Dunning was considering a career move that would take him to Nebraska and didn’t want his son “going out to California or wherever,” Bruce said. So a friend of a friend set the wheels in motion. Long-time Cornhusker trainer Paul Schneider told Osborne about Dunning, and Osborne contacted Dunning’s high school coach, Brian McGregor, who sent game film to Nebraska.

Osborne offered an opportunity and the possibility of a scholarship in two years. “Why do we want to do that?” Dunning asked his dad. “Why do you want to pay for me to go there?”

“I just think you’ll be better off,” his dad told him.

Father knew best. “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Dunning.

He wouldn’t have said that following his freshman year, or after redshirting his second. Despite some tough times, however, he earned a scholarship. And by his junior season, he was playing on special teams and seeing action as a back-up. Former defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin “gave me a chance,” and Kiffin’s successor, Lance Van Zandt “gave me the opportunity when Monte left,” he said.

Dunning started as a senior, alongside Lee Kunz, who also came from Colorado. And when Kunz turned down an invitation to play in the short-lived Challenge Bowl all-star game in Seattle following the 1978 season, Dunning, who carried the nickname “Stunning,” replaced him.

As it turned out, the all-star game provided Dunning with more than the “couple of thousand bucks” players were paid. But first, he spent the better part of a year in Hawaii. After finishing his degree in business management, he stored his belongings in Lincoln and flew to Honolulu.

“I wasn’t ready to join the work force,” Dunning said. “I didn’t really know what I was going to do (in Hawaii). I had some family over there. I did odd work. I bummed around.”

The Hawaiian vacation ended with encouragement from his dad, who called a relative there to ask about his whereabouts and was told he hadn’t been seen for several weeks.

“When he shows back up, have him call home,” his dad said.

Dunning, who was running out of money, finally called.

“What are you doing?” his dad wanted to know.

“I’m still trying to find myself,” said Dunning.

His dad seemed to be skeptical about the value, much less the progress, of the quest. “If you haven’t found yourself by now, get your butt home and get a job,” he told his son.

The next day, Dunning was on a Braniff Airlines flight bound for Nebraska.

During a layover in Dallas, he contacted a couple of teammates from the Challenge Bowl. They encouraged him to find a job there. They said he could move in with them. A couple of days later, he was back in Nebraska, loading his car with belongings, including a stereo and television set.

He lived with his Challenge Bowl friends and slept on their couch “for six months,” he said.

Dunning went to work for United States Gypsum as a sales representative, spending 18 years in Texas, Dallas and Houston. Seven years ago, the company transferred him to Carmel, Ind.

He has a middle management position now. “They call me a manager,” he said. “I say, ‘Hey, I’m just a salesman.’ You can put a fancy title on me; I’m still just a salesman, really.”

He and wife Marilyn have a daughter, Stevie, and a son, Alex. Stevie, a freshman at Maryland, played midfield-defense on a Terrapin soccer team that reached the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. Alex, a high school sophomore, has interests that range from baseball to playing the guitar and acting.

Though he follows the Cornhuskers, and supports the program, Dunning hasn’t attended a game at Memorial Stadium in more than 20 years. He missed last season’s reunion of football lettermen held in conjunction with the Oklahoma State game because of “things going on with my kids,” he said.

He supports them in what they do, though if Alex were ever to say he planned to go to Hawaii to find himself, “it would be a real problem,” said Dunning, “because I’ve gotten a little bit older.”

Among those disappointed that he didn’t attend the reunion was James Wilder — Pillen. “Jimmy got mad and so did some other guys,” said Dunning. But Stevie and Alex “both had something going on and I wanted to watch them. That was a little more important in my life, to watch my kids.”