Nebraskan ‘ Pf
Tuesday, April 23,1991
>'li'C' McKee Daily Nefcia3kan
Nebraska’s Alysen Madsen keeps a watchful eye on her putt
at Mahoney Golf Course. Madsen is tied for 10th with 165
after two rounds in the three-round event.
Two NU golfers stay dry
by finishing in top three
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
As the first trio to finish 36 holes in
Monday’s round of the Husker Clas
sic women’s golf invitational entered
Mahoney Golf Course’s clubhouse,
heavy rains pelted the grounds—and
the other golfers.
“You were lucky to finish in time,”
Comhusker coach Robin Scherer said
to the three women.
Comhuskcrs Joanne Brooks and
Steph Flood were two of the lucky
three who escaped the rain.
But their luck extended beyond
staying dry. Brooks entered the club
house in first place by one stroke,
while Flood, a freshman, was tied for
third with Kansas Slate’s Denise Pottle
with a 156 for 36 holes.
Flood had shot an 83 in the morn
ing’s 18 holes, which put her in a
four-way tic for 12th. But she would
cut off 10 strokes in the afternoon’s
game, shooting a 73.
Kari May,a sophomore from New
Mexico, was in second—and was the
other player in the first group inside.
Scherer said she was pleased with
t he performance of Brooks and Flood,
but not surprised.
“Stephanie was nervous in the first
round of the tournament,” she said.
“But this afternoon, when the wind
died down, she was fine.”
During the morning’s round, 30
milc-per-hour gusts of wind whipped
through the course. Scherer said that
hurt Flood’s early play because she
hits the ball high.
The wind didn’t seem to bother
Brooks, though, as she improved from
her morning score of 79 to post a 73 in
the second 18 holes.
Husker Cari Clesson finished the
first day of competition tied for sev
enth place with a score of 162. Kim
Lefflcr, Alysen Madsen and Melissa
Odell were lied for 10th with 165;
Melissa Busskohl, 17th with 166;
Stephanie Hupp, tied for 20th with
172; Becky Young, tied for 23rd with
179; and Anne Rist, 25th with 206.
New Mexico leads the tournament
by one stroke over Nebraska’s first
squad, with 634. Kansas State and
Wyoming arc third and fourth, while
Nebraska’s second squad is fifth.
The tournament will resume today
with a final 18-holc round beginning
at 8 a.m.
NU baseball adds game
The Nebraska baseball team has
added a game against Washburn Uni
versity today at4 p.m. at Buck Beltzer
Field.
Nebraska coach John Sanders said
the game was scheduled in attempt to
lill out the 60-gamc schedule. Ne
braska will now only be one game
short of the 60-game limit.
“It’s also to get playing time and
give some people an opportunity to
play,” he said.
The Ichabods, an NAIA school,
are 23-19 this season, with an 11-5
loss to Nebraska in the Cornhuskers’
season opener.
Sanders said he wasn’t si*c who
would start on the mound for Ne
braska, but said more than one pitcher
would sec action.
In another schedule change, the
Huskcrs will travel to Cedar Falls,
Iowa, to play Northern Iowa at 1 p.rn.
Wednesday. The doublcheadcr origi
nally had been scheduled to be played
in Lincoln.
-Nick Hytrek
An offensive trio
Huskers anticipate passing season
By Chris Hopfensperger
Senior Reporter
The Nebraska football team is going
to hammer some people — on of
fense.
Receivers coach Ron Brown said
the Comhuskers have a trio of players
at wingback with the size to compare
to 1989, when Richard Bell and a
young Nate Turner punished defen
sive players with their blocking skills.
This year, Turner leads a trio of
wingbacks with the same potential,
Brown said.
“Two years ago, we really ham
mered people at that position,” he
said. “And I think we’re where we
can do that again.
“It’s a good threesome there.”
Turner, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound
senior, is second on the depth chart at
the position. He is sandwiched be
tween No. 1 Mark Dowse and No. 3
Vincent Hawkins.
“Nate is a great athlete,” Brown
said. “His major problem has been
injuries.”
Tumer, who sat out three games in
his sophomore season, missed the first
three games of last season after break
ing his collarbone in prescason drills.
He returned to the team to regain
the starting wingback position for six
games and ended the season as the
fourth-leading receiver on the team
with nine catches for 91 yards.
Brown said Turner and Hawkins
match up physically, but Turner and
Dowse have an experience advan
tage.
“Nate has explosive power and
he’s a big man,” Brown said. “He can
block, yet he has good quickness.”
The Huskers’ increased passing in
the offensive gameplan favors all of
the receivers.
“We’re spreading the ball out
more,” Turner said. “Being a receiver,
you want to catch a pass.”
Brown said the Huskcrs are not
completely changing the offense.
“It’s not going to be a thing where
we are one-dimensional,” he said.
“We still have a lot of great running
backs and running quarterbacks.
“The kinds of passes we’re throw
ing, however, are high percentage
passes.”
While catching the ball is nice,
Turner said, “it isn’t the only thing
the wingbacks are responsible for.
“We have a lot of statistics that
don’t show up in the paper on Sun
day,” he said. “Every time someone
scores on a long run, we are a part of
it. Somebody threw that downfield
block.”
Kangers will win, someday...
One day when I was really young,
my dad picked me up by the diaper.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, and
I wasn’t in for a spanking. Nor was I
crawling to an imminent death in an
overly crowded street or into the hands
of a scary stranger.
My dad picked me up, looked at
me for a second while I was dangling
in the air, and said, ‘ You will live,
breathe, and love the Texas Rang
ers.”
No doubt the Rangers sucked then,
as they have ever since. They were
probably at least 20 games under .500,
choking away a doubleheader even as
he spoke. But my dad (a Texas na
tive) can be intimidating, especially
to the eyes of a startled infant who
would really rather listen to mommy.
So I obeyed, making the first blun
der of my young life.
I’ve paid the price ever since.
It took me awhile to realize that I
wasn’t like the other little boys grow
ing up around me. Every spring, they
would put on their Royals, Twins or
Cubs caps and tell me how their team
was destined for World Scries glory.
They knew the players, and even
planned to attend a game or two that
summer.
I wasn’t like the rest. There were
no Texas Rangers’ baseball caps to be
found in the Nebraska Sandhills. To
get any information about my heroes
from the Deep South, I would buy
scads of baseball cards, discarding
Willie Stargells, Mike Schmidts and
Reggie Jacksons just to reach the
bottom of the heap and find a Bump
Wills or an A1 Oliver.
The other kids watched their teams
on NBC’s Saturday “Game of the
Week.” Vin Skully and Joe Garagiola
would shout with glee when Reggie
Jackson took one out of Yankee Sta
dium to beat the Royals. Even the
Twins and Cubs merited a few ap
pearances, no matter how bad they
were.
Texas was never on.
Instead, my dad bought me a radio
and tuned it to 820 AM, the Home of
the Rangers. About 9 p.m. every night,
Marie Holtz and Eric Nadell, the voices
of the Rangers, would come filtering
through the hog market reports.
By the time I could pull in the
game, the contest already was in the
seventh inning, the Rangers would
inevitably be trailing by a huge mar
gin. The announcers would laugh,
sometimes at the Ranger players, and
sometimes go off into a fantasy “What
if we had a really good team?” rou
tine.
Meanwhile, I suffered because of
my Ranger addiction. When I’d wear
my big “T” cap to school, kids would
ask me if the Rangers were a minor
league team, if I could name more
than three Ranger players, if they had
drawn more than 500 fans the night
before.
A couple of times, I got to attend
games in Arlington Stadium. I went
crazy, especially having 30,000 fans
around me who knew who the Rang
ers were and actually liked them. Texas
would only win one out of every three
games I saw, but I left ecstatic.
When 1 returned, however, I had
nobody with which to share my en
thusiasm. No matter how I embel
lished the story about how my team
rallied to win, any Ranger tale was
labeled a yawner.
The seasons always ended the same
way — with me silting in front of the
television watching a couple of teams
1 really didn’t care about battle for the
pennant. All other fans had their year
in the sun: The Royals in 1985, the
Twins (for God’s sake, the Twins) in
1987 and the Cubs even won a couple
of division titles before losing in the
playoffs.
Texas has never won the Ameri
can League West, much less anything
else. The closest was five games behind
California in 1986. Arlington Sta
dium, incidentally, is the only pre
1980s baseball stadium never to have
hosted an All-Star Game.
The Rangers arc the team nobody
cares about.
Ageless Nolan Ryan has brought a
little notoriety (Did you sec the Sports
Illustrated baseball issue?) but it
quickly fizzles when Nolan’s picture
is put next to the Rangers’ record.
Although Texas m ight have one of its
best teams ever this season, they will
end up buried beneath new and old
powers like Oakland, Chicago, Kan
sas City and California.
I knew that when this season be
gan, the Texas Rangers weren’t going
to win anything. But nevertheless, I
listened to them last week just like I
was 10 again.
With the talent they have now, the
Rangers arc going to win the damn
division before the turn of the cen
tury. I and every other closet Texas
fan will come out, wave red and blue
pennants and laugh all the way to the
Series.
It will happen someday; 1 can feel
it.
Right, Dad?
Adkisson is a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan sports stafT re
porter.
c
CD
Jtf
s
I
O
d
5
■
