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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 26, 1991)
Nebraskan Monday, August 26,1991 . ** ' ■■ ■■ - ■ .— — „ ' — WUIIam Lauer/Daly Nebraskan l-back Scott Baldwin stiffarms Zeke Cisco on a punt return during Saturday’s scrimmage. Baldwin ran for a total of 179 yards and two touchdowns in the scrimmage. Joseph hottest QB By Chuck Green Senior Editor As the temperature heated up at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, so did the race for starting quarterback duties on the Comhusker football team. During Saturday’s scrimmage — the last practice of two-a-days — Mickey Joseph out-performed Tom Haase and Keithen McCant and ap peared to take the lead in the race. Against the first and second-team defenses, Joseph completed 6 of 8 passes for 66 yards and a touchdown, and ran once for 15 yards. Haase, who suffered a sprained ankle during the scrimmage, com pleted 2 of 4 passes for 11 yards and rushed four times for 13 yards. McCant had the best passing day of the top three, connecting on 5 of 6 for 90 yards. Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne said that although he was pleased with the efforts of all three quarterbacks, he particularly was happy with Joseph’s performance. “Mickey had a reasonably good day,” Osborne said. “He’s really improved as a passer this year. If he can see (the receiver), he gets the ball pretty close. “To this point, he’s been the best.” The scrimmage, which lasted about three hours, was divided into two pans: a game-uxe pracuce, in which the top offensive and defensive units lined up against the second and third team players; and a more controlled segment, in which the Husker scout team players ran the formations and defenses of Nebraska’s first four opponents. Joseph established his presence early. On the first play of the first team offense’s second possession, Joseph dropped back and threw a 44 yard touchdown strike to tight end Johnny Mitchell. Later, against the scout team, Joseph hit Mitchell on a 37-yard pass and threw for a second touchdown pass, this lime to split end Tyrone Hughes from 22 yards out. Joseph said he thought his per formance could have been better, and that he needs to make improvements to win the starting job for Nebraska’s season-opener against Utah Stale on Sept. 7. “I thought I made three or four errors that might have hurt drives, but it’s something I know I can fix,” Joseph said. “I think Keilhen and Tom are having good fall camps, so I don’t know how (Osborne) is going to (pick a starter). ‘‘We’re just going out there and trying to get the mental part of the game down, and just try to heljf our See SCRIMMAGE on 16 -—— Summer of food and fun rekindles love of sports 1 vc been told betore that you can’t get too much of a good thing. But I must disagree, because I overdosed on sports last spring and was absolutely sick of them when school let out. I don’t remember exactly how my sickness developed, but even the thought of turning my televi sion on to ESPN made my stomach turn. Nick Hytrek After watching hours of college basketball during the winter and spring and then devoting my view ing time to baseball, the NBA play offs and the new World League of American Football, I was burned out. And I was tired of seeing the same disgusting things day after day: Millionaire baseball players fighting with owners because they’re not making enough money, Detroit Piston players fighting with any one and NBA referees who were scared to death of calling a foul or traveling on Michael Jordan. So when the semester was over, I retreated to my hometown of Smart, hoping to bring back the joy I had found in sports for most of my life. Sometime during the summer, the love was rekindled. Two things happened, by acci dent, to help: Slow pitch softball and T-shirt baseball. Stuart is a small town of 650 residents, and I had forgotten how they can make anything outdoors fun. Almost immediately, I was talked into “filling in” on one of the slow pitch softball teams. A player told me they had a tournament the next day and were short one guy. Being the type of person who is easily talked into almost anything, I agreed and wondered just what I was gelling myself into. It didn’t lake long to find out. I soon realized that, yes, the final score was important, but the real competition involved seeing who could drink the most beer al ter the game. This usually was the fiercest competition of the day and one that the players tried the hardest to win. As the season went on, I became a permanent member of the team and gained notice as a rookie who was doing extremely well in the post-game competitions. We won only four games, but I think we probably had more fun than any other team in the league. I also got the urge to pass my knowledge of the game of baseball on to the younger generation and immediately took advantage of the opportunity when it presented it self. Once again, after I said I would help coach a team, I wondered what I was getting myself into. And once again, I was pleas antly surprised. I was assigned to help coach a iram of kids rancincr in ace from 8 to 11. It didn’t take me long to realize that kids don’t take their sports as seriously as we “grown-ups” do. After losing a game, no matter what the score, the kids remained depressed for maybe five minutes, and then their thoughts turned to where we were going to get pop and candy bars. The only problem with this practice is that on road trips, we never got the kids enough to eat so their mouths were busy eating instead of talking, scream ing and giggling on the way home. * These kids just enjoyed playing the game and had a lot of fun doing it. They weren’t concerned about multi-million-dollar contracts, being platoonedor that they weren’t get ting enough playing time. Put a can of pop in their hands after the game, and they were on top of the world. Sadly enough, the summer wound down to an end, but 1 was suddenly craving football, base ball or anything remotely resem bling a sport. Covering the Nebraska football team’s photo day only increased my restlessness for the start of the football season. Once again, the only time my television isn’t tuned to ESPN is See JOY on 16 Thater, Brand lead Huskers 7 A 1991 team wins tuneup By John Adkisson Staff Reporter What looked like target practice early turned into a valuable tuneup for the Nebraska volleyball team. The Comhuskers, playing for the first time this season in front of a crowd and at the Bob Devaney Sports Center, won a hard-fought exhibition 15-6,16-14,13-15,15-11,9-15 over a team made up of Nebraska alumnae players. The 1991 team dominated early behind the play of middle blocker Stephanie Thater, who registered 10 kills in the first game. For the match, Thaler nailed down 22 kills and a .341 hitting percentage. In the second game, Nebraska’s second unit fell behind the alumnae team 14-12 and faced a match point. Freshman Christy Johnson then served four consecutive points, and a block by sophomore Nikki Strieker gave the 1991 team a two-point victory. starring lor me sccona unu m me second game was junior outside hitter Debbie Brand, who registered ] 0 kills and a .500 hitting percentage. Brand led all Nebraska players with a .400 percentage for the match. Nebraska coach Terry Pettit praised Brand, and said her improvement has come in areas off the court as well. “Debbie has made a lot of im provement, and most of it has not been technical, but rather mental,” Pettit said. “She’s definitely in a group of players that we’ll be able to count on. The alumnae rallied in the third game, which again was played against Nebraska’s first team. After falling behind 13-12, the alumnae rallied for three consecutive points and took a 15-13 win. Pettit said part of his team’s troub les late may have been attributed to fatigue. ‘Trorn a conditioning standpoint, I thought we showed some signs of fatigue at the end,” he said. After Nebraska’s first team rallied from a 7-0 deficit to win 15-11 in the fourth game, the match went into a rally-scoring decided fifth game, which the alumnae won by a 15-9 score over Nebraska’s starling unit. The Comhuskers open their sea son next Saturday against Wisconsin, and Pettit said it was good for his / ' Paulman/Daily Nebraskan Nebraska alumna Linda Barsness makes a dig in Saturday’s exhibition against this year’s Cornhusker volleyball team. players to be exposed to fans, rally scoring and game conditions before the season actually starts. “We got the opportunity to scrim mage a good team before we take off to Kentucky to play three very good teams,” he said. “You can do all you want in practice, but the newcomers especially need to get out there and feel what all of this means.” A crowd of 2,240 watched the scrimmage, and Pettit said that the attendance figure indicated to him that fans in Nebraska are “enthusias tic” for volleyball. “That shows the interest here in Lincoln, when you draw 2,000people for an exhibition match,” he said. Pettit also added that it was excit ing to see the enthusiasm shown by the alumnae team, which included former All-Americans such as Val Novak, Cathy Noth, Virginia Stahr and Enid Schoncwisc-Marlin. “This indicates to me that the play ers who came back had a good expe rience in the program, and that Ne braska volleyball is still important to them,” Pettit said. The match was the first of its kind, but Pettit said the alumnae match could very well become an annual event. “It’s a possibility,” he said. “But if the alumnae wants it, I’m sure we’ll do something like this in the future.”