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.”
