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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1967)
Tuesday, August 1, 1967 Summer Nebraskan Page 5 t. Big Eight Official: Good Guy Bad Guy By George Kaufman NU School of Journalhm It's convenient that Big Eight officials' shirts are both white and black. For, during a hectic con ference game, these men-in-the-middle can easily turn from good guy to bad guy and back again many times in the minds of the fans. And it often seems that the only difference between a good and bad call is whether or not if favors the home team. In fact, during the down-to-the-wlre Big Eight title races in basket ball of the past few sea sons, much has been said of the so-called "home court advantage" in the Big Eight. Several inter-school rival ries have been blown out of proportion during pressure-packed games between championship contenders, and numerous incidents in volving fans, referees and players have tended to taint some schools' reputations. The Universities of Colo rado, Kansas and Nebraska field houses, because these three teams have had to fight it out for the crown recently, have become known as "pits" into which any visiting team is thrown at the merciless abuse of the fans, seldom to emerge with a victory. Pennies Thrown During a Colorado-Nebraska game at the NU Coliseum, pennies were I thrown on the playing floor repeatedly whenever the of- ficials made a call against I the Huskers. At a tense Kansas-Kansas State con I test, ice from cold drinks I was splattered on the floor, 1 and the fans had to be warned several times of a i technical foul. One irate fan rushed onto the floor and attacked Colo rad guard Pat Frink at Kansas University's Allen i Fieldhouse. J At Colorado, fans j hounded NU players with t angry chants of N-I-T, iN-I-T, in reference to the I National Invitational Tour fnament bid the Huskers . I drew, despite the fact that ' Colorado and Nebraska wound up in a tie for sec j ond spot in the Big Eight. It has been charged that under this sort of crowd .'pressure officials would be 3 coerced into leaning toward ' the home team, thus widen ing the home court advan ; tage for bad crowds and 1 penalizing disciplined , crowds for being good, j But the statistics show that, although there aei initely is such a thing as a-home-court advantage, it varies considerably from year to year, and is evident ly not determined in any way by the officials. The difference In the Museum Displays Photos The world's largest dis- If, lay of photographs taken rom space is on oispiay In the University of Ne braska State Museum. Sponsored by the Nation al Aeronautics and Space Administration, the 500-square-foot exhibit includes photographs taken during the early Mercury manned flights. Project Gemini is repre sented with photographs taken during the "walk in space," the history-making rendezvous between Gem ini VI and VII, and the docking of the Gemini VIII spacecraft with the Agena -vehicle. The highly detailed photographs of cloud cover taken by the weather satel lites also are shown. The area of space-science investigation is depicted with the photographs tak en of the moon by the Ranger probes and of Mars by the Mariner spacecraft. The Museum hours: Sun day 1:30 to 5 p.m, Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; holidays, 1:30 to 5 p.m. Capitol City Mobile Home Seles Headquarters for Great Lakes, Van Dyke, Namce mobile homes. Local bank financing. Wfll deliver throughout Nebr. 432-0736 2703 West O i ' , 1.7:; : v Coach Joe Cipriano number of fouls called on the home and visiting teams during an average confer ence game has not been over three the past three years, and during the 1965 66 season the average was against the home team. Smallest Advantage "While I have no way of comparing the home court advantage," stated John D. Waldorf, supervisor of officials in the Big Eight, "I would presume to ven ture, from conversations with people in other confer ences, that we have the smallest (home court ad vantage) of any major con ference in the country. "The individual school home court advantages (conference games only) varies from year to year, but it is interesting to note that some of our schools play better on the road than they do at home." But there has been a de cided margin in the num ber of games the home team wins over the visiting team over the past three years. In 1964-65 home teams won 36 to the visitors' 20; in 1965-66 it was somewhat smaller at 31-25; and in the past season, 1966-67, it was 35-21. These statistics also si lence angry fans who ac cuse the ref of favoring the visiting team because of harrassment by the home team crowd. So the famous home-court advantage seems to be physical the home players knowing their own court, be ing used to playing on it and psychological the home team being "up" be fore their vociferous fans rather than being caused by discrimination on the part of referees. Fans Help "There definitely is a home court advantage," af firms Husker star guard Stuart Lantz. But the All Big Eight player doesn't grabs an official's arm during throw it at the feet of the officials: "When you're on the road, it's hard to get up for a game, but at home you've got all those people yelling your name, and you can get jelled." But even here statistics seem to flatten all argu ments. Over the past three seasons conference teams have scored only about three more points at home than on the road. And the home team's winning mar gin has gone from " points in 1964-65 to 2.4 points dur ing the past season. Moreover the home court advantage, computed over the year as a conference average, went from 6.93 points three vears ago to 4.59 points in 1966-67. The home court edge can be as fickle as the fans themselves. During the 1964 65 campaign, Kansas' home court advantage was only .43 points. For 1966-67 it was 10.9 points. For Kansas State it was 11.57 points three seasons ago. This last season it plummeted to a minus 6.6 points. Supervisor Waldorf de fends his officials against charges of biased referee ing: "In our selection of of ficials, we are always on the lookout for capable men, who have played, coached and have an excellent offi ciating background and who are leaders in community activities in their home communities. These men are screened very thorough Keepsake Diamonds Longines Watches Crlit 1332 "O" St. am rss?m Saturday, 11:00 floor a tense moment in a basketball ly before they are admitted to conference officiating." Program Big Eight basketball offi cials are chosen by use of what Waldorf calls the four point program : Prospect must have rec ommendation by coaches, directors, the supervisor and others concerned. The record of the pros pective official is checked back through the high school and college commis sioners in the state in which he resides. The ability of the offi cial is checked out with Big Eight officials who have worked with him in his own state. Before coming into con ference varsity officiating, he is assigned to freshmen games where the supervis or and other competent ob servers can watch his work. "We feel that this pro gram gives us an excellent background on the abilities of the prospective official and that through this pro gram we secure the best officials possible in our six state area," said the super visor. And here too, statistics are for the officials. New Travelers Cofe and Motel 4040 Cornhutker Highway Open 24 Hours Coed Eating Specials, 95c-$l Cleanliness Oar Motto -.tm ii iii iir oilihtMilhr J$g& if You're invited! A unique showing of the new looks for fall by Gold's College Ad visory Board. August 5 at in Gold's fifth a.m. auditorium. Door Prizes Music Refreshments game last season. Of the 15 conference bas ketball referees, 14 own col lege degrees, all have played basketball them selves, 67 per cent have been basketball coaches, two have Masters degrees and the 15 have been offi ciating an average of 13.9 years. nnR5) rn-: t f 1 1 I Do Pitched Balls Curve? Controversy Discussed By Charlie Green NU School of Journalism Can a human being ac tually make a baseball curve? Igor Sikorsky, inter nationally famous expert on aerodynamics, has seem ingly ended the century-old dispute with a positive an swer. In the early 1870's, two major controversies stormed in the world of sports. It was California's Gov. Ice land Stanford who, in 1878, collected a $50,000 bet by proving that all four feet of a galloping horse are off the ground at the same time. The other controversy over the curve ball still rages today after nearly a cen tury of scientific debate. Two of the most recent tests of the curve ball dis pute were made by two national picture magazines. Each of them used an elaborate photographic tech nique and the conclusions of both were regarded as authoritative. Life, in May, 1 964, claimed that its studies "raised once more the pos sibility that this standby of baseball is after all only an optical illusion." The other, Look, in the same month, insisted "that a curve ball actually does curve." Ernest Lowry, an out spoken scientist of the opti cal illusion school, said in Sports Illustrated, "The great injustice of the much publicized curve pitch is that of the manner in which mil lions of American boys have been misled on the question. They have been forced to delude themselves into thinking that their pitches actually do curve." Different Pitch Eddie Sawyer, former manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, said in Sport mag azine in 1960, "I am not EX CHANGE YOUR FOR 1135 'R' positive whether a ball curves or not, but there is a pitch in baseball much different from the fast ball that separates the men from the boys. If this pitch does not curve it would be well to notify a lot of baseball players who were forced to quit the game they loved because of this pitch, and may now be reached at nu merous gas stations, river docks, and mental institu tions across the country." Ex-Cincinnati pilot Luke Scwell asked a Life reporter in 1964 a pertinent ques tion: "Isn't it strange that the optical illusion only hap pens when someone tries to throw a curve ball?" Bob Feller, former pitch er for the Cleveland In dians, said in his book on "How to Pitch": "Periodically somebody pops up with the old argu ment that a baseball really doesn't curve that it is an optical illusion. If this is so. I have struck out a great number of hitters with opti cal illusions." Earl Mack, former man ager of the Athletics said, when asked about the curve by a Look reporter, "Are these scientific crack-pots the closest thing to 5305 O' St. 9 rp STREET lt i i V i . J y uu 020s crediting pitchers with the power of turning on optical illusions at will?" Scientific Proof Thus the minions ranged on but without scientific prooi. Siko'-sk1 kn e about the game of baseball but he made up for it in scientific knowledge. He re alized that a Ditched ball traveling in a curved path is an example of aero dynamic action in everyday life. He realized too that the force which caused a ball to move in flight is the same force known to engi neers as the mafruis effect. Professor G. Magnus of Berlin started research in this field but his subject wasn't baseballs it was cannon balls. He was trying to find out why German ar tillery couldn't throw more strikes. Sikorsky's first problem was to determine how much "stuff" or spin a pitcher can put on the ball in the regulation 60-fect, six-Inch distance from the mound to the plate. Careful studies were made in New York of rapid fire flash photographs showing the progress of a Continued on Page 6 home . . . McDonald's 865 No. 27th St. II GrO