Coach: Passes, hits will tell NU tale[
By John Adkisson
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska volleyball team’s
old rival has all but laid down and
died.
Saturday, the second-ranked Com
huskers will try to deliver a fatal blow
to long-time Big Eight foe Oklahoma
by beating the Sooners in their final
game of the year.
Oklahoma is 11-20 overall and is
sixth in the conference with a 3-8
record. The Sooners will miss next
weekend’s four-team Big EightTour
nament at Omaha for the first time in
school history.
The Sooners, however, own more
wins against Nebraska than any other
conference team. Nebraska assistant
coach John Cook said regardless of
Oklahoma’s record, he expects the
Sooners to be ready for the season
finale.
“Beating us would be a great way
to end a terrible season for them,”
Cook said. “They’re either going to
come out wanting to get the season
over or come out all fired up.”
Nebraska, on the other hand, will
be looking to complete an undefeated
Big Eight season. The Huskers have
not lost a regular-season game in the
conference since falling to Oklahoma
in Norman in 1988.
Cook said he still thinks about that
loss.
“I still have nightmares about los
ing to them down there,” Cook said.
“Whenever we go down there, it’s on
my mind,”
Even though the Sooners are strug
gling this year, Cook said the Ne
braska players still get up for Okla
homa.
“A couple of the players on this
team have been beaten by Oklahoma,”
he said. “We take them a little more
personally than we would other Big
Eight teams.”
Nebraska blew by Oklahoma in
Lincoln earlier this year, winning 15
0, 15-9, 15-7. Cook said Nebraska
controlled the match early, and got
the Sooners flustered.
“We passed the ball well and since
they were playing in the (NU) Coli
seum, we got the momentum early,”
Cook said.
He said passing will be a key Sat
urday.
“If we’re passing the ball well and
hitting like we can, they won’t be able
to stay with us,” Cook said. “The only
way they can get in the match is if we
make unforced errors.”
Nebraska clinched the Big Eight
regular season title Tuesday with a
comeback five-game win against
Colorado, 5-15, 11-15, 15-3, 15-7,
15-5.
Cook said fatigue, coupled with
great play by Colorado, caused the
Huskers to fall behind early.
“We arrived there late in the day,
and we were tired,” he said. “Plus, in
the first two games, Colorado played
error-free volleyball.”
Even when the Huskcrs got down
two games to none, Cook said there
was confidence among the players.
“I never fell a sense of panic when
we were down,” he said. “We’re an
experienced team, and I think wc
have that inner confidence.”
Cook credited seniors Val Novak
and Becki Bolli for providing the
spark needed to come back and win.
“When Val gels that fire in her
eyes, that's when wc turn up our play
a notch,” Cook said. “Both of our
seniors decided that wc were going to
win, and that’s the way it turned out.”
He also credited the play of sopho
more Stephanie Thaler, who had 18
kills and .654 hitting percentage.
“Val started to get the ball to Stepha
nie,” he said. “And she just crushed
it.”
Basketball team to sweat it out down south
By Paul Domeier
Senior Reporter
Successive games will keep the
Nebraska men’s basketball team at
about the same level during the San
Juan Sunshine Shootout, according to
Coach Danny Nee.
“We don’t have the chance to get
much better in Puerto Rico,” Nee
said.
The Comhuskers will have to play
three games in three days, Nov. 23
25, in the 2,000 seat, un-air condi
tioned Eugenio Guerra Sports Com
plex in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
But alter the team returns, relaxes
and recuperates, Nee said, the games
should pay off in improvement.
He said he’s seen improvement
already, between exhibition wins over
High Five America and a Czechoslo
vakian national team.
“If I could see that all the way
through for five or six games, we’ll be
in great shape,” Nee said.
The fourth game of the regular
season will be Nov. 28, twodays after
the team returns, against fourth-ranked
Michigan State in the Bob Devar.cy
Sports Center area, which seats 14,302
and can be heated or air conditioned
as necessary.
The eight-team San Juan Shootout
includes four teams that participated
in last year’s National Invitation
Tournament or NCAA tournament
Nebraska will play NIT runner-up St.
Louis in the first round.
The Billikens arc solid. Nee said,
and hc‘s sneaked a peek at the other
teams in Nebraska’s bracket, Amcri
can-Pucrto R icoand top seed Illinois.
He said he hasn't looked beyond that,
to Murray Slate, Northern Iowa, Old
Dominion and Bucknell.
Nee said he will play a lot of
people to combat the heat and humid
ity. The Huskers’ lop nine arc Bruce
Chubick, Tony Farmer, Carl Hayes,
Rich King, Keith Moody, Dapreis
Owens, Eric Pialkowski, Beau Reid
and Clifford Seales, with Chris
Cresswcll and Kelly Lively the lop
reserves.
The Huskers have one more Red
White game to squeeze in before the
trip south. The intrasquad scrimmage
will he Monday at 7 p.m. at Papdlion.
Nee said the team can benefit from
that scrimmage,
“One, it just showcases the team in
Omaha,” he said.
The scrimmage also is played under
game conditions, with a crowd and
officials.
“It still heals scrimmaging at home,”
Nee said.
NU gets
Kansas
recruit
By Paul Domeler
Senior Reporter
Nebraska women’s basket
ball coach Angela Beck has
snatched a recruit, Sauna With
erspoon, out of the heart of enemy
territory, Kansas City, Kan.
“We’ve never been able, since
1 ’ vc been here, to land a Kansas
City kid,” Beck said.
Until this year. Witherspoon,
who attends Washington High
School, has signed a letter-of
intent to attend Nebraska on a
basketball scholarship next year,
leaving behind the closer Big
Eight schools, Kansas, Missouri
and Kansas State.
Witherspoon is a 5-foot-9
swing guard. She also is a two
time AAU All-American on the
Missouri Valley AH-Star team,
which has been national AAU
runner-up two straight years. This
follows a trend Beck started with
present H uskers Karen Jennings
and Meggan Ycdsena to recruit
players with extensive basket
ball backgrounds.
“I think what you’ll find is
the new kids have a lot more
experience than the kids we have
now,” Beck said.
Beck said she expects to sign
at least two more players in the
November early signing period,
SeeHUSKERSonQ ^
Jailed Thompson
tells nightmare
of OU football
By Chuck Green
Senior Editor
For anyone skimming through “Down and
Dirty: The Life and Crimes of Oklahoma Foot
ball,” the book written by former Oklahoma
quarterback Charles Thompson, tragedy is the
most noticeable aspect.
Thompson, 22, is serving lime in federal
prison in Big Springs, Texas, for selling co
caine. But when one turns to the middle of the
book to view the photo section, it’s all brought
closer to home. Anyone’s home.
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Harold, playing football in their yard as chil
dren. There is a picture of Thompson running
wild through the midget leagues, and there are
a few snapshots of him and his girlfriend, Kori.
But when the reader turns to page 1 and
settles in for a long read, it becomes crystal
clear that this is no touching family talc.
The book, written with the help of Allan
Sonnenschcin, an editor at Penthouse, gives
readers a cold, hard look at the Oklahoma
Sooner football program, or at least what it was
three years ago.
Very little of the picture painted is as pretty
as any seen in the mid-section.
Thompson recalls, with uncanny vividness,
the day that marked the beginning of the end
for him, former Sooner coach Barry Switzer
and the nightmare that was the Oklahoma pro
gram.
One particularly chilling excerpt is in the
first chapter, when Thompson recalls the day
Switzer summoned him to his office to give
him some bad news.
After Switzer handed a newspaper clipping
to Thompson about rapes and shootings by
football players on the OU campus, he writes,
Switzer got right to the point:
“ .. . finally, he spoke. ‘Charles,’ he said,
pointing to the newspaper, ‘what could be
worse for the program than this?’
“‘Gee, coach,’ I stammered. ‘I don’t really
know.’
“Switzer flung the newspaper down and
screamed at me: ~You know goddamned well
what I mean.’
THE UFE & CRIMES
OF OKLAHOMA FOOTBALL
CHARLES THOMPSON &
ALLAN SONNENSCHEiN
‘“I guess me,’ I said.
‘“Yeah, you, Charles,’ he continued scream
ing. ‘Do you know that this will be all over
national television and your family is going to
gel hurl? Charles, I’ve heard rumors about you
being around drugs again. And you know what
else?’
“I looked at him without saying a wotd.
‘“Charles, the FBI knows about it.’
“I panicked. ‘Coach, what are you talking
about?’
“'Charles, they’ve got you.’
“I sat there trembling, my arms wrapped
around my body. I had never felt so cold in my
life with the air conditioner blowing, listening
to Switzer’s words ... “
And so begins for the reader a rollercoaster
ride through Thompson’s Sooner career. He
recounts everything from his excitement about
getting recruited by Oklahoma to his empty,
cold feeling sitting in a courtroom only two
years later, being sentenced to two years for
conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
The rest of the book is full of Thompson’s
memories and opinions, and not many ofcilhcr
arc positive._
See THOMPSON on 8
Switzer’s book
has its charm,
lampoons NU
By Chuck Green
Senior Editor
Love him or hale him, Barry Switzer is a
charmer.
His personality has been to many the epit
ome of all that is wrong in modern college
football. His flamboyance and tolerance is
seen by many as a cover for some sort o! hidden
evil.
Maybe, maybe not. Through it all, he was
the winningesi active coach in the collegiate
ranks until he retired in the summer of 1989.
But in his autobiography “Bootlegger’s Boy,”
Switzer conveys his enchanting personality
through detailed accounts — often, excuses —
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slowly spiraled into the toilet during his 18
year reign as coach.
Several references to the Nebraska program
and those surrounding it arc in the book, most
of which are humorous, although some Ne
braska fans may disagree, given their staunchly
unamused altitude toward any sort of criticism
toward their beloved Cornhuskers.
One example: Switzer colorfully recounts
the incidents after the 1986 game against the
Huskers in Lincoln, when Oklahoma came
from behind to beat Nebraska 20-17 in the
game’s last seconds.
”... Nebraska w as stunned. The crowd was
ahnost silent. Jerry the policeman and 1 walked
off the field toward that same tunnel where I
had been grabbed (a story that came a page or
two earlier). On the right side of the end zone,
the Nebraska fans in red were deflated and
frustrated. On the left side of the end zone, the
OU fans in red were deliriously happy.
“I nudged Jerry and pointed at the Nebraska
fans and said, ‘That bunch is awful damn
quiet.’
“Justas if 1 had been a movie director giving
them a cue, the 15,000 Nebraska fans iri that
section all rose as one person — men, women,
grandfolks, little kids, they all stood up and
gave me the finger.
“Yeah, 15,000 Nebraskans all shooting me
ihc bird.
‘“God, Jerry, I’d love lo have a picture of
that hanging on my wall,’ I said ...”
Hmmm.
“Bootlegger's Boy,” written with the help
of journalist and screenwriter Bud Shrakc, covers
everything the college football fan would ever
want to know about the Sooner program and
Switzer himself. Recruiting wars, games with
Texas and Nebraska and trouble he and his
players and assistant coaches got into, fill more
than 4(X) pages.
Switzer devotes an entire chapter to the 16
NCAA violations the Sooner program was
charged with during his tenure. He tells what
happened, why it happened and whether, in his
opinion, he and the program were guilty.
The took probably will be met with skepti
cism and head-shaking disbelief from Nebraska
fans who have been trained from birth to hate
the Sooner program and whoever leads it, so
reading it with an open mind is vital.
For the objective reader, (hough, it’s a must
read. It gives a gripping overview of an inter
esting time in college football history.
Even if the lime period isn’t very charming,
the book is — in its own unique way.