Page E/4 ! inr{ 1 Netnraskan
4 I i I,.J I I & f I B CM 1 Thursday, January 14,1988
^_ _• ___ i’—^
Nebraskan
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
Diana Johnson, Editorial Page Editor
Jen Deselms, Managing Editor
Curt Wagner, Associate News Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Joel Carlson, Columnist
Win more, earn more
Regents should fumble Osborne salary bid
For a coach who has lost
two of his last three
games, Nebraska foot
ball coach Tom Osborne sure
has wound up in an profitable
situation.
The NU Board of Regents
will vote Saturday on a pro
posed $8,900 salary increase
for Osborne, who just com
pleted his 15th season as head
coach at Nebraska.
An $8,900 raise just doesn’t
make sense. The salary increase
would boost Osborne’s pay to
$97,000 a year - $3,370 more
than University of Nebraska
Lincoln Chancellor Martin
Massengale and $39,900 more
than Gov. Kay Orr.
Nebraska Athletic Director
Bob Devaney said Osborne
deserves a raise, adding that he
didn’t see anything wrong with
a university football coach
being paid more than a univer
sity chancellor.
“A coach s job is in a little
more jeopardy (than a
chancellor’s),” Devaney said.
The stability of the coaching
staff at Nebraska or anywhere
else shouldn’t have a bearing
on wages. Success should dic
tate a pay increase. If coaches
do their job well, then their pay
should increase. If they lose,
they don’t get a raise. That’s
how it works with any other
job.
And the success of the 1987
football season is in serious
question after Osborne led the
team to a mediocre — at least
by Nebraska standards — 10-2
record. Osborne described this
year’s team as his best yet, but
the C’omhuskers still dropped a
17-7 decision to conference
rival Oklahoma in November.
That Oklahoma team was
coached by Barry Switzer, who
made a mere $70,000 last sea
son.
After the Oklahoma loss, the
Huskers defeated Colorado
before frittering away a first
half lead and losing in the final
minutes against Florida State in
the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl.
Granted, Osborne has
coached Nebraska to a 147-34-2
record and is one of the win
ningest coaches in college foot
ball. Few will question that he’s
one of the finest offensive
coaches in the country.
Osborne has two weak links
— an 8-7 bowl record and a 4-12
record against Oklahoma. He
has never won a national cham
pionship, but has come close on
a few occasions.
Earlier this week, Daily Ne
braskan sports columnist Chuck
Green wrote that the Nebraska
football team lacks the motiva
tion to win it all. His point was
that the players need more in
centive to pull off a win against
teams like Oklahoma and Flor
ida State — and so docs
Osborne.
So, instead of just boosting
Osborne’s salary with the flick
of a pen on Saturday, the regents
need to develop an incentive
plan for the Husker coach.
Under this plan, Osborne’s pay
increase would hinge on the
number of games he won — or
lusi — uuuii^; a scaauii. i ui
example, each loss would cost
$ 1,000 off his raise, or each win
would add a certain amount
Either way would work just
fine.
For now, Osborne’s $89,000
salary is competitive with sala
ries of ocher college football
coaches. The same can’t be said
of UNL faculty salaries, which,
even with help from a tuition
hike and Orr’s budget proposal,
will still be lower than at other
land-grant universities.
One can’t blame Osborne for
asking for more money. Every
one is trying to get ahead in the
world. But the regents need to
remember the last time Osborne
asked for money: A request to
build the new indoor field to
practice in during cold weather,
thus being better prepared for a
bowl game against a southern
school that practiced in a warm,
outdoor climate.
Osborne got the money and
the building, but not the bowl
win.
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
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Readers are welcome to submit
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The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
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Letters will be selected for publica
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Readers arc welcome to submit
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Reporters take a trip abroad
‘A kid from Nebraska' brings Guatemala memories home
GUATEMALA, CENTRAL
AMERICA — And I kept thinking,
“I’m just a kid from Nebraska.”
Mud squished in the ruts of my
high-top aerobic shoes as I walked up
the rocky, wet road to the safe, warm
van waiting for me at the top of the
hill.
Her smooth face, undaunted with
bravery, haunted me.
Rain dripped from my bangs onto
my face as I turned to look at the small
bamboo hut for the last time. I would
never see her again, this young, dark
haired woman who had lived through
violence, pain and strife. A woman
alone on a bed made of wooden slats
with no money, little food and three
children.
And I kept thinking, ‘Tm just a kid
from Nebraska.”
I know nothing of wars, of poverty,
of starvation. It’s only something I
read in the newspapers, avoid when
CARE commercials air or consider
sadly when the homeless scatter the
streets of Lincoln.
But there it was, staring at my well
fed, white American face. I had never
fell so ugly.
And there was my pen and note
book, the signs of journalism, docu
menting her tale ... voyeurism at its
best.
Why were we there, she asked.
This breed of white people that had
never entered her village before. Were
we there to help?
No, Daily Nebraskan photo chief
Mark Davis said, but if she would tell
us her story perhaps it would enlighten
those whose lives are easier... per
haps then she would feel some relief,
some change in her pocket.
Magdelena, her deep brown eyes
flaming, is one of three personal por
traits whose stories and photos will be
published in Friday’s Daily Nebras
kan. She is a native Guatemalan
whose husband vanished without a
trace four years ago in the throes of a
civil war between the country’s totali
tarian military leaders and left-wing
guerrilla troops.
J-U
I was there to report her story as 1
squatted on a log in her dirt-floored
hut and felt the foggy cold from the
Highland Mountains of Guatemala,
Central America, creep under my
stone-washed jean jacket.
I expected to sec things I had never
seen before, witness life as I had never
experienced and uncover details un
known before to me. I wasn ’ t prepared
to feel helpless.
1 was told the Quiche Indians of
Guatemala have lived that way for
years, that they were accustomed to
wind shooting through their thatch
roofed huts, to carrying 200 pounds of
com on their shoulders up and down
the Highland Mountains, to the ache
of their muscles as they carried buck
ets of water from a stream a mile and
a nan away, 10 naving a lire expec
tancy of 55 to 60 years. I was remindcd
that there are poor people all over the
world.
But'I knew I’d climb into that whii
fiberglass vehicle, stuffed with fresh
fruit and bread and bottles of mineral
water and drive on down the bumpy,
rain-soaked road to another destina- ‘
tion.
Magdelena probably didn’t know
if she would have bread the next week,
although a friend had stuffed 10
quetzales — about $4.50 in U.S. dol
lars — in her hand.
Guatemala, the northern-most of
the Central American countries, and
its native Indians that make up more
than half its 8 million people, have
been daunted with violence since at
tacks by the Spanish conquistadors in
the 1500s.
Stories like Magdelena’s exist all
over the country. According to a
Guatemalan friend who works for an
international political escort service
called Peace Brigades, politically
motivated disappearances continue
despite the newly elected democratic
government.
And 1 kept thinking, “I’m just a kid
from Nebraska.”
I wish I could have taken you with
me. But if attention is paid to the
upcoming stories, then maybe, just
maybe, you’ll understand the relent
lessly haunting memory of
Magdelena’s brown eyes.
Johnson is a Junior new-editorial major
and Daily Nebraskan editorial page editor.
i
Hart’s re-entry, success in polls I
show the poor logic of a donkey
We’ve just got to stop shutting
down the paper. My First
column last fall concerned
the plethora of juicy news stories, just
itching for the poison pen of the col
umnist, that paraded by unscathed as
the Daily Nebraskan ran only two
papers a week during the summer, and
none of them with any signed col
umns. Now, just as we take a deserved
(and perfectly logical) hiatus from
publishing all the news we can Fit into
print, the juiciest, raciest, most itch
ing-for-thc-poison-pcn of them all
breaks.
I am referring, of course, to the re
entry of Gary Hart into the race for
Democratic Party nominee for presi
dent. You cannot imagine the pain of
sitting on a story like this for three
weeks until your only outlet for guf
faws, chortles and heartfelt peals,
gales and fits of laughter and convul
sion restarts the presses.
This man cannot — repeat — can
not be serious. But the really frighten
Iing thing is, he is dead serious. After
demonstrating fully and completely
what many had suspected for years —
that he is unstable, impulsive and
i dangerously unpredictable — Hart
; has the audacity to pretend that all of
, his problems can be summed up and
. disposed of in a single night of wild
passion, unique in scope and unre
t- peatable in practice. Gosh, the guy
l made one mistake. Surely we can
forgive him for that. And just to show
our resolve to be caring people, we’ll
I even put him in the White House so he
doesn’thavetofeel so had about being
a slime.
The fact is that Hart’s problems are
o not confined to one sleazy night in a
c Washington apartment. The total lack
of discretion and judgment illustrated
in his order of Rice on the side is
it merely symptomatic of the generally
s sloppy and shallow behavior that has
been Gary Hart for so long. For years
t- many have searched behind his facade
d of technocratic New Age politics for
e any substance whatsoever and have
come up empty. The man has long
appeared enamored by the limelight,
motivated by sheer passion and un
able to deliver on any of the promises
of stability and genuine leadership
capability that have so long been his
stock in trade. The explosion in the
Miami Herald was the natural culmi
nation — but only the culmination —
of years of behavior just half an inch
below the trustworthiness line.
r ■ ■ i
I
L=l
But now he’s back, and there’s
gonna be trouble. Of course, I don’t
really know why I am so surprised.
The move shows a total lack of good
judgment and any sense of prudential
ity or propriety. It should have been
predictable from the start. Even his
gallant return is just the latest demon
stration of the Gary Hart repertoire of
inconsistency, indecision and every
other negation of desirable character
istics for a president. “Yes, I’m run
ning, and you can’t force me out over
a little thing like this.” “No, I’m not
going to run, and it’s all your fault”
"Hey, I’m going to run, and you can’t
stop me. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.”
Besides all this, does anyone re
member that Hart still owes a fortune
on his 1984 campaign? Perhaps it is
only fitting that a debtor nation should
have a debtor president.
Of course, the most telling aspect
of this whole charade is that, 48 hours
after re-entering the race, Hart was
identified as the front-runner for the
Democratic nomination. Anyone with
an ounce of insight knows that this
says much more about the state of the
Democratic Party than it does about
Gary Hart.
This outdated relic of New Deal
rhetoric has only managed to elect one
Democratic president in the last 20
years. Moreover, three of the last four
elections— 1972,1980, and 1984 —
have been among the party’s most
lopsided defeats in history. One would
expect that a generation of such shel
lacking would have forced the leaders
of the party into emergency sessions
to figure out what in the world to do to
keep the ship afloat. Yet the party is in
no better shape than to have a charla
tan such as Hart zoom to the head of
the pack within two days of perform
ing one of the grandest nip-flops of all
time.
Gary Hart is not electable. If he is
nominated, the weakest Republican
candidate will nail him to the wall. An
empty chair could defeat the man in
November (and, given the Republican
field, that just might be the race we
have). Slay tuned for landslide No. 4.
Yet the Democrats can do no better.
They are splintered, wounded, bleed
ing and gasping for air. Their rallies
and calls for unity have, to borrow a
metaphor from futurologist John
Naisbitt, all the promise of dinosaurs
mating. Another mandate for the
Republicans may be all it takes to bury
the Democratic party as we know it,
and the re-entry of Hart has all but
guaranteed such a mandate.
I have been for years and remain to
this day a registered Democrat. In
1984 I voted for a Republican for
president for the first time in my life
— and I did so under protest. I did not
vote for Reagan so much as I voted
against the blind refusal of the Demo
cratic Party to recognize and respond
to reality that was so amply symbol
ized in the nomination of Walter
Mondale. Given the developments ol
the last year, the nomination of Gary
Hart would indicate that the party is
even further gone than it was four
years ago. 1 may wind up casting my
vote for an empty chair, but I will do
that before I endorse the shambles that
my party has become.
Sennett la a graduate student In philoso
phy and la campus minister with College
Career Christian Fellowship.
