Sports
Osborne says player injuries worry him
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
Tom Osborne was apologetic to the media
during his weekly media luncheon.
The Comhusker football coach just didn’t
have anything to say.
“I don’t have anything to say that I haven’t
run into the ground for the last few weeks,” he
said. “Our preparation has been normal and
we’re ready to play.”
Osborne said Husker offensive line coach
Dan Young scouted Northern Illinois Saturday
during its 26-17 win against Fullerton State.
“He said they executed their wishbone
pretty well, and seemed to do all the basic
things wishbone teams do,” Osborne said.
Osborne said his biggest concern, other than
Saturday’s season-opening game, is Ne
braska’s injury situation.
I-back George Achola, who broke his right
leg last week during a scrimmage, probably
will be out for most of the season, Osborne
said.
He said split end Tim McCoy, who under
went arthroscopic surgery after tearing carti
lage in his knee, will return next week.
Terry Rodgers, who was projected to be
among Nebraska’s top three I-backs this sea
son, is still slowed by rehabilitation from re
constructive knee surgery, which he underwent
last winter.
“We’ll wait and see how soon he feels
ready,” Osborne said. “We don’t want to rush
him.”
Fullback Lance Lewis, who was diagnosed
as having a nerve injury in his neck, “won't
even practice this fall,” and his career could be
finished, Osborne said.
Northern Illinois is coached by former
Huskcr recruiting director Jerry rctUDonc, wno
left Nebraska to accept a position at Texas
A&M in 1981.
Osborne said he and Pcttibone still are
friends.
“I’ve talked to him on the phone many
times . ...” he said. “There are no hard
feelings, or anything like that.”
Osborne said Nebraska Ians shouldn l ex
pect to sec a perfect performance by the Husk
ers Saturday.
4 4 It would be unrealistic for fans to expect us
to go out and pul on a polished perlormancc,”
he said. “Northern Illinois has a good team and
would do reasonably well in the Big Eight. If
we don’t play well, they could cause us some
problems.”
Quarterback Gerry Gdowski will start Sat
urday, Osborne said, because of his consis
tency throughout spring and fall drills. But
patMips ivucRcy juNcpiiauu iviiKcvjrani— u nc
isn’t rcdshirtcd -- probably will see playing
time.
“He (Gdowski) seems to know the offense
the best and has been the most consistent,”
Osborne said. “He deserves to start. But we’ll
try to play at least one of the other guys a lot
through the year.
“Mickey Joseph has a lot of speed, and as
for Mike Grant... when you see a guy take the
No. 2 offense against the No. 1 defense and do
pretty well, it tends to raise your eyebrows a
little bit.’’
Osborne said he knows the fans will debate
the matter all season.
“By the end of the season, I’ll have a lot of
people that will have told me what to do,” he
said. “But right now, I don't know. I don’t
think I’ll really know until about 5 p.m Satur
day.”
Husker freshman Callies fills two positions
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
Playing more than one position is a
common practice in baseball, but
rarely is seen in college football.
But Nebraska freshman Marvin
Callics got a taste of it during Satur
day’s 23-23 tic between the Corn
huskers and Snow Junior College.
Callies, a 5-foot-10, 197-pound I
back from East Bernard, Texas,
rushed for 130 yards and a touchdown
while splitting time between I-back
and quarterback.
“I really liked playing both posi
tions,” he said. “But I like quarter
back more. Hopefully, I’ll get to do
this sort of thing more often.”
Callics was recruited by Nebraska
as a quarterback, but was moved to I
back one week before Saturday’s
game, the first on the junior varsity’s
five-game schedule.
Shane Thorcll, the junior varsity’s
coach, said Callics did “extremely
well, especially considering the short
amount of time he had to practice at l
back.”
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do
at I-back,” Thorcll said. “Marvin
still wants to play quarterback, so
we’re not sure what we’re going to do
at this point.”
Callies, playing backup quarter
back to Joel Cornwell, completed 3 of
7 passes for 32 yards, and was inter
cepted once.
Callics lost the No. 1 position on
the depth chart to Cornwell during
two-a-day practices last month, and
Thorcll moved him to I-back shortly
afterward.
“1 hated to sec that kind of speed
sitting on the bench,” Thorcll said.
The speed Thorcll spoke of was
evident in the third quarter. With the
game tied 9-9, the Huskers were faced
with a second down at their own 18
yard line. Callies took a pitch to the
right and immediately was met by
three defenders.
Callies reversed his progress back
to the right, giving ground back to the
13. He sprinted around the comer and
outran the only defenders left for an
82-yard touchdown. The extra point
by Pat Spccht put the Huskers ahead
16-9.
“It wasn’t too hard once I got to
the comer,” Callies said of the play.
“Everybody was slanted to the other
side of the play, so 1 had open field in
front of me.”
Thorell said Cornwell and Callies
probably will compete for the start
ing job at quarterback for much of the
season, if not all of it.
He said whoever plays backup to
Cornwell will depend on the situ
ation.
“If we need to throw, Jeff Lind
quist is probably the best passer,”
Thorell said. “But Marvin Callies is
the guy you want in there if you want
to run your option.”
Callies said he docs not mind
playing cither position.
“I’m happy wherever I play, just
as long as I get some playing lime,”
Callies said. “I don’t know about
pulling double time (playing two
positions), but I do like playing.
“I want to be in there at quarter
back. I will by the end of the sea
son.”
With the game lied 23-23, Snow
had the ball at the Nebraska 20-yard
line with nine seconds left. But Snow
placekicker Eric Harbison missed a
game-winning field goal when he
shanked the ball to the left.
Snow coach Paul Tidwell said he
would take the tic over a loss, but was
disappointed at the missed opportu
nity to win the game.
‘‘I told the coaches it was a shame
we drove 16 1/2 hours (from
Ephraim, Utah, where theschoohs
located) for a lie,” he said. “But it is
worth it. The kids will never forget
this game.”
Callics said the tic will help the
Huskers more than a lopsided win
would have.
“I fell good he missed it (the field
goal),” he said, ‘‘but I wish we’d
have had more time to gel the ball
back and have one more crack at it.”
Thorcll agreed.
“You play a team where you beat
them 70-0, you get a false sense of
security,” he said.
Callies said the tie was better than
a loss, but not good enough.
“In the next few games, we want
to be there for the win, not a tic.”
Osborne comments on allegations made
in book on Nebraska football program
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
Alleged payment offers to sources
and incidents “blown way out of
proportion” were part of Armen
Ketcyian’s tactics while writing
“Big Red Confidential: Inside Ne
braska Football,” according toCom
husker coach Tom Osborne.
Osborne said Kctcyian, a former
investigative reporter for Sports Il
lustrated magazine, allegedly offered
former Nebraska quarterback Nate
Mason payment for information
about alleged drug use and booster
payoffs to Hcisman Trophy winner
Mike Roz.icr.
Osborne said he received a phone
call from Mason in the fall of 19H6, at
which umc Mason told Osborne that
he had been followed to his apart
ment by two men.
“They followed him to his door
and began asking him questions,”
Osborne said. “Nate told me that
they identified themselves a> Sports
Illustrated writers.”
According to Osborne, Mason
said the writers also had indicated
“that there would be something in
it” for Mason if he gave them infor
mation.
“They asked him questions about
Ro/icr, if he had ever taken any pay
offs or used drugs . . . things like
that,” Osborne said.
Mason told the writers he had no
knowledge of such behavior.
“Then they said ‘You don’t ex
pect us to pay for that kind of infor
mation, do you?”’ Osborne said.
“Nate told them that was all he knew,
and then they left.
“Armen will dispute this, but I
talked to Nate two days ago and he
repealed the statement to me and an
attorney.”
Osborne said he was not certain
Keleyian was one of the writers, but
“when I mentioned Armen’s name to
Naic, he seemed lo recognize it.”
After receiving Mason’s call,
Osborne contacted the Sports Illus
trated offices and talked to the maga
zine’s chief attorney. She told him it
was against Sports Illustrated policy
to pay sources for information.
“Then I asked her why they were
after Nebraska,” Osborne said. “She
said it was their (Sports Illustratcd’s)
opinion that college athletics was a
wasteland, and they were out to ex
pose and improve it.”
Shortly after that. Sports Illus
trated killed the story.
“Whether my phone call had
anything to do with it, I don’t know,”
Osborne said.
Osborne said the book - which he
had not read as of Saturday -- has an
“alarming number” of unnamed
sources, which upsets him.
“If someone has something
worthwhile of use lo say, they’ll usu
ally say it,” he said. “But no one can
press sources as to why they said
something if no one knows who they
are.”
Osborne contacted Lincoln attor
ney Alan Peterson to check the book
for libel. Peterson studied the book
and contacted its publishing com
pany — Contemporary Books -- pro
testing that there was libelous con
tent.
‘‘I wasn’t worried about myself,”
Osborne said. “I get called worse
things every Saturday afternoon and
Monday morning than I did in the
book. I just thought some other
people might have a problem with
some of the things in it.”
After the letter was written to the
publisher, Osborne said, some things
were changed - but not without more
difficulty.
Peterson’s letter prompted the
publisher’s attorney to send letters to
Nebraska media outlets, claiming
that Peterson had threatened the
company with lawsuits. Osborne said
he has not yet contemplated litiga
tion.
The topic of an expose* on the
Nebraska football program is nothing
new to Osborne.
In the fall of 1985, Osborne re
ceived a phone call from the mother
of Brian Hiemer, a Husker tight end
that had committed suicide a week
before fall drills began. She told him
that a reporter had contacted her at
home and began to ask her questions
about the suicide and other matters.
“She was pretty upset,” Osborne
said.
Ushornc said she told him the
reporter had indicated that he was on
his way to Lincoln to talk to Osborne
and ask questions about the suicide
and other matters.
The next day, Osborne said, he
noticed a reporter interviewing play
ers during a scrimmage, which vio
lates Nebraska policy.
The reporter was Kctcyian.
Osborne said he approached
Kctcyian, told him he couldn’t inter
view until after practice and person
ally escorted him out of Memorial
Stadium.
“So we really didn’t get off to too
good of a start,’’ Osborne said.
Kctcyian contacted Osborne 1 1/2
years later. He came into the athletic
administration building, Osborne
said, and made an appointment, for an
interview.
‘ ‘ He came to me and said he knew
I wasn’t who I said I was,” Osborne
said. “He said he knew this wasn’t an
honest program, that I was a phoney
and so on.
“He also said he was going to
expose us.”
Besides Mason, former Huskers
Todd Carpenter and Jeff Taylor were
contacted by Kctcyian, as were other
former players, said Osborne, who
received calls from each of those
players.
“They all called me and said the
Nebraska coach Tom Osborne commented Tuesday on "Big
Red Confidential: Inside Nebraska Football."
line ol questioning was unusual, he
said.
Osborne said he and Kctcyian
talked on several occasions after that,
including lunch and breakfast meet
ings, “and I got to where I liked the
little guy, but I didn’t like what he
was doing,’’ he said.
The book also included accusa
tions of illegal recruitment and ticket
sales by players to b<x>sters, most
notably to North Omaha business
man Everett Alger, who, according to
Kctcyian’s book, paid several players
lor tickets to home games right in the
locker room.
“Boosters giving payments to
players was something we try to
control, ’ Osborne said. “I have per
sonally visited with some people and
asked them to stay away from our
program. I talked to Everett Alger
and told him things didn’t look good,
and that I would appreciate him not
coming around the program.”
Osborne said he talked to Alger in
the spring of 1984, and that he didn’t
see him at practice after that.
“The sale of tickets by players
was something we constantly warned
against,” Osborne said. “But in the
old days (before the gate pass list
replaced the hard tickets in 1985), we
had 500 tickets walk out of here (with
players) every Thursday afternoon.
“I was scared to death that the
NCAA would send a plainclothes
man up here and he’d buy tickets
from six or seven players, who would
then be declared ineligible.”
Despite the book’s accusations
against the Husker program, Osborne
said he doesn’t view the book as a
personal attack on him.
“I don’t think Armen Keteyian
ever really understood me, or does
now,” Osborne said. “I realize that
he was trying to do his job and come
up with something sensational that
people want to read, and he tried his
best to do that.
“But this book is not representa
tive of our football program.”
