Sports
Weight room and study area to expand
By Chris Hopfensperger
Staff Reporter
A renovation project that was pri
marily funded through private dona
tions will expand Memorial Sta
dium’s weight room and increase
services for student-athletes.
A1 Papik, the assistant athletic
director for administrative/academic
services, said the $1.7 million reno
vation of the west stadium will im
prove the Hewitt Academic Center
and the weight room by creating
additional space. The renovation,
which is scheduled to be completed
in mid-December, was financed
through donations and from Ne
braska’s participation in the 1988
Kickoff Classic.
“No student funds or taxes were
used,” Papik said. “We had all funds
in hand before we opened the bid
letting.”
Papik said the renovation was
divided into three phases, with the
first phase involving the weight
room. The weight room was ex
panded to include individual areas to
work out different parts of the body.
The second phase of the project
involved the Hewitt Center. Papik
said additional study areas were
added, and a computer room was
built.
A combined dining area, which
will allow male and female student
athletes to eat at the same place, also
is included in the second phase. Male
athletes currently eat in the Hewitt
Center, while their female counter
parts eat in their residence halls or at
private residences.
The second phase also will com
bine the academic support center for
female athletes, which currently is
located in Smith Hall, with the male
athletic support center in the west
stadium.
“This will allow us to provide all
academic support in one area,” Papik
said, “and eventually have study
tables and tutorial areas for the men
and women together.”
Papik said the project’s final phase
is an expansion of the athletic depart
ment’s fund-raising offices. The ex
isting offices will be enlarged and a
new reception area will be added.
“These improvements will allow
for a more centralized system for all
of the athletes and the athletic depart
ment itself,” Papik said.
Papik said he is optimistic about
the project’s completion even though
it is two weeks behind schedule.
“We’re hoping to be done by the
middle of December,” Papik said.
“We want to move into the new fa
cilities prior to the beginning of the
second semester.”
Papik said the facilities will con
tinue to be exclusively for student
athletes and the athletic department’s
support staff.
Columnist gives predictions
based on WO OPS method
Welcome to Hype Week, when
the media tells everything you need
to know about Saturday’s Nebraska
Colorado football game.
For Hype Week each columnist is
obligated to present a glorious pre
diction for the game, using the em
pirical formulas of the wonderful,
oblivious objectivity for predictions
by sportswriters, which is better
known as WOOPS.
For WOOPS, we gather what the
coaches think, what coaches for other
teams think, what the players think,
what players for other teams think
and even what grandmothers think.
We compare and analyze the of
fenses, defenses, quarterbacks, sec
ondaries, kicking games and the hot
dogs at Folsom Field.
All this information is calculated
to come up with the without-a-doubt
result, obvious to Neanderthals and
gerbils, or WRONG.
The WOOPS process started in
October, when, after the Nebraska
Missouri game, reporters asked the
Tiger players which team, Nebraska
or Colorado, was better.
Next reporters asked Missouri
Coach Bob Stull which team would
win - as if Stull is supposed to have
the answer.
Well, if any coaches would know,
it would be Tom Osborne and Bill
McCartney,and they don’t. Certainly
they have as much information for
WOOPS as anyone, but if the coach
always had the answer, Pete Rose
would be rich.
So when all the information was
collected, added, subtracted, multi
plied and squared, my answer was
three. Since that is not a score, I
changed my information - legal in
WOOPS since no one can gather all
pertinent info -- and received a 21 -17
tie.
WOOPS was working at peak effi
ciency, so it was thrown away in
favor of a gut feeling. No matter how
much a sportswriter analyzes scores,
films, statistics and match-ups, pre
dictions still come down to gut feel
ings.
Besides, everyone should have
known from the start that WOOPS is
wrong.
You don’t ask a four-year-old
whether Faulkner was better than
Hemingway, and you don't ask Mis
souri’s second-team left guard about
See HYPE on 18
Iowa Stata’a Tim Baker grimaces as he pursues Nebraska running back Leodis Flowers.
NU to compete in prominent swim meet
By Jeff Apel
Senior Editor
Mixed results will await the Ne
braska women’s swimming team
when it competes in the Iowa quad
rangular.
Nebraska women’s swimming
coach Ray Huppert said he is looking
forward to the meet because it will
give his team an opportunity to face
some quality competition. The meet,
which will pit Nebraska against
Brigham Young, 6th-ranked Michi
gan and 26th-ranked Iowa, will be
scored in dual and invitational fash
ions.
Huppcrt said the scoring system
means no team should dominate the
meet, which will be Friday and Satur
day at Iowa City, Iowa. He said the
format will make Michigan the heavy
favorite in the invitational race, but
will keep the Wolverines from domi
nating the team race.
Six places will be scored in the
invitational race. The top three fin
ishers will be awarded points in the
team race, with no more than two
persons per team allowed to score in
one event.
Huppcrt said the scoring limita
^ a
lions in the team race will eliminate
depth advantages that teams may
possess. He said they also will help
Brigham Young because the Cougars
arc oringing a small contingent from
Provo, Utah.
‘‘A lot of things could happen,”
Huppcrtsaid, “so it’s nice to put it in
a perspective of dual meets.”
Huppcrt said he has taken a vocal
approach in preparing his team for
the Iowa quadrangular. He'said that
approach represents a sharp contrast
to the quiet stance he took toward last
weekend’s meet.
Nebraska opened its season by
competing in the United States
Swimming meet last Friday and Sat
urday at the Bob Devancy Sports
Center. Huppert said he was pleased
with the Huskers’ performance even
though the meet was a low-keyed
affair.
“I thought we did a fine job,”
Huppert said. ‘‘We didn’t see any
body dying at the end of races. That’s
important - that’s something we look
for.”
Huppert said he isn’t worried
about his team having to adjust from
a relaxed, non-scoring meet to a
competition that will feature national
prominence. He said he welcomes
the tough competition Nebraska will
face.
”1 want to swim the best people
we can swim all the time,” Huppert
said. ‘‘I feel we need to challenge
ourselves.”
Huppert said he isn’t worried
about his team getting burned out by
its lough schedule. In addition to
facing Michigan and Iowa this sea
son, the unranked Huskers will
square off against perennial powers
Kansas, Clcmson, Colorado State,
Minnesota and USC.
We got a problem if our athletes
get burned out going against good
competition,” Huppert said. ‘‘It
should keep us psyched up.”
m a m
Largest player aims high, remains optimistic
By Chris Hopfensperger
Staff Reporter
To say Nebraska freshman offen
sive tackle John Butala is big is an
understatement.
A huge understatement, that is.
Butala is listed on the junior var
sity roster at 6-foot-7 and 298 pounds,
which makes him the largest Corn
husker on the freshman and varsity
teams.
There is no one on either roster
who is taller, and he outweighs the
next closest player, starting varsity
offensive tackle Doug Glaser, by
three pounds - if you go by the roster.
“I’ve dropped,” Butala said
about his weight.4 ‘I dropped a lot of
weight in two-a-days. I had a lot of
water weight on.”
“The first day I came here I
weighed 303. Now I weigh about 282
or 284.” •
Butala walked on at Nebraska af
ter transferring from Springfield
(Mass.) Technical College. He spent
his year with the Rams trying to
improve his grades and did not play
football.
Butala said he was surprised when
Nebraska accepted him as a walkon.
“Just for the hell of it 1 sent
(Nebraska) my high school grades,”
he said, “and they accepted me on
that.”
Butala, who attended Enrico
Fermi High School in Enfield,Conn.,
was an all-conference selection at
offensive and defensive tackle during
his senior year.
“I had a scholarship offer to the
University of Maine from Buddy
Teevens,” Butala said. “Later in the
season I found out Teevens went to
Dartmouth to become coach.”
‘ The new coach brought in all his
own recruits,” he said.
Butala then headed to Springfield
Tech.
‘‘I sat the year out and had plans to
transfer out here to one of these big
schools,” Butala said. “I thought I
had to go to a couple of years of j u nior
college.”
“It was basically a school to get
your grades up.”
Butala helped the freshman squad
to a 2-1-1 record this season by step
ping into the starting role at tackle.
He replaced Lance Larson, who has
been slowed by a thigh injury.
“I got my chance when Lance hurt
his thigh,” Butala said. ‘‘Lance’s
thigh is feeling better now so it is
going to be up to the coaches.”
Butala said he has not been overly
pleased with Nebraska’s perform
ance.
The Huskers opened their season
by tying Snow Junior College and
stomping the Bethany (Kan.) re
serves. Nebraska then lost to the Air
Force reserves before beating Iowa
Central Junior College.
The Husker junior varsity will
close out its season Friday, when it
faces Waldorf Junior College. The
noon game, which is free to Univer
sity of Ncbraska-Lincoln students
who present their IDs, will be at
Memorial Stadium.
“Our last game the offense wasn’t
really intense,” Butala said. “I don’t
know what it was. Maybe it was our
loss in Colorado against Air Force.
“We weren’t fired up.”
Butala is taking his playing time in
stride, trying not to get his hopes up.
“I just take it as it conies,” he
said. “I’d love to play for the varsity
some day, but I’m not going to set
myself up for disappointment.”
“I’d like to shoot for a starting
position, but I’m not going to aim loo
high.”