Sports
I Tradition brought Coloradan to Nebraska
By John Gardner
Staff Reporter
When Nebraska tangles with Colorado on
Saturday, Brian Boerboom will trod onto his
old stomping grounds for the final time as a
Comhusker.
Boerboom, a senior of
fensive tackle from Colorado
Springs, Colo., said it’s fun
to go back and play Colo
rado because many friends
and family members come
to watch the game.
Otherwise, he said, it’s just
another game. Boerboom
“We don’t really consider Colorado to be
our rival,” Boerboom said. “Whoever we play
each week is our rival.”
Because of this, he said, it won’t be a “big
blow” if they happen to lose.
“It won’t be bad for our program, it just will
be good for theirs,” Boerboom said. “We just
want to beat them to win the Big Eight.”
Boerboom attended Doherty High School in
Colorado Springs and almost went to Colo
rado. One specific thing swayed him to come to
Lincoln.
“The reason I came here is because of the
tradition here,” he said. “Colorado could be an
up-and-down team at any time, especially when
I came to school.
“Nebraska has always been a powerful foot
ball team.”
Boerboom, highly touted out of high school,
received several honors as an offensive guard.
As a senior, he was named to high school All
America teams by Bally and Scholastic Coach
and was the offensive player of the year in the
Colorado Springs area, an unusual feat for a
lineman.
As a freshman for the Comhuskers in 1987,
Boerboom started at right tackle for the now
defunct junior varsity team. He then redshirted
in the 1988 season. Boerboom lettered as a
sophomore, backing up Tom Punt and Terry
Eyman at left tackle.
Last season, Boerboom helped Nebraska
lead the Big Eight in three offensive catego
ries, including rushing offense, total offense
and scoring offense.
But, for the past two seasons, a win against
Colorado has eluded Nebraska. Boerboom said
the offensive line didn’t play up to its potential
last year against the Buffaloes and believes this
year it will be different.
“This year we’re playing a lot better on the
line. Since they beat us two years in a row, it
means a little more this year.”
However, beating them off the line will be
no easy task, Boerboom said. The Buffalo
defensive line is big and strong with no weak
spots and one familiar face, he said.
“I played against their nose guard (Joel
Steed) in the state high school championship
game,” he said. “That guy is real hard to move.
He fights off blocks from the center really
well.”
Boerboom said he is confident about the
Huskers’ diverse offense this year — espe
cially with players like Keithen McCant and
Derek Brown.
“Keithen can both run and pass very well,”
Boerboom said. “When the defense knows it’s
a passing down, Keithen can tuck the ball away
and get the 11 or 12 yards we need for the first
down. It’s just great.”
Creating the big holes for Brown is quite a
feeling too, he said.
“If I can make a hole, even half a hole,
Derek can get through there,” Boerboom said.
“For his size, he’s a real workhorse.
Boerboom said he would like to try out for
professional ball, but if he doesn’t make it, he
has something to back down on.
“I plan on student teaching next fall,” he
said. “After that, I’d really like to get a teaching
job and coach football.”
I Vitale hails, hypes Husker hoops
If a blustery shot of winter and
another miserable Ncbraska-Colorado
football game aren’t enough to make
you believe it’s almost basketball
season again, try this:
Dick Vitale says so.
Vitale, the oh-so-colorful hoops
analyst for ABC and ESPN, said in a
phone interview Wednesday that
Nebraska and the Big Eight may be as
good as they’ve ever been.
“I think people have to realize how
tough that Big Eight is,” Vitale said.
“It is absolutely dynamite in basket
ball now. You can have a good team
and finish in fifth or sixth place.”
. And fifth or sixth is exactly where
Vitale and about every other basket
ball analyst are placing Nebraska in
their preseason polls—even after the
Huskers’ third-place season and 26-8
finish under Coach Danny Nee last
season.
Don’t get Vitale wrong. Nebraska
is good. But he said other teams in the
Big Eight are as good as any in the
country.
“Oklahoma State is going to be
dynamite with Byron Houston and
the whole gang coming back. Kansas
is going to be very good again,” Vi
tale said. “And Oklahoma — ‘it’s
payback time,’— Billy Tubbs says.”
John
Adkisson
After that, Nebraska and Missouri
will battle for a spot in the NCAA
Tournament according to Vitale.
Although the Big Eight is moving
to ESPN and Big Monday telecasts
this season, Vitale said he won’t be
courtside when Nebraska and Okla
homa battle in a Jan. 27 nationally
televised matchup at the Bob Deva
ncy Sports Center.
“I would be so excited to come out
to red country,” Vitale said. “But I
don’t see it happening this year. I
simply go where my bosses tell me.”
But Vitale said Big Monday should
be a big boost for the Big Eight.
“It’s a real positive for the confer
ence,” Vitale said. “Big Monday is a
happening, like Monday Night Foot
ball on ABC.”
Vitale said he has visited the
Nebraska campus only once before
— and added that he loved the atmos
phere. He said he would like to return
sometime during basketball season to
see or call a game.
“I know your program is in a posi
tive way,” Vitale said. “Danny Nee is
a quality coach. He’s got such a fei
sty, scrappy personality — and that is
reflected in his players.”
I — W it I —I —, dt KtikiMiMliii._
DN file photo
Nebraska’s Carl Hayes blocks a shot by Missouri’s Jamal
Coleman in last season’s Big Eight tournament champion
ship game. Hayes is the only returning starter from last year’s
26-8 Cornhusker team.
This year, Vitale predicted big years
for the Huskers’ two top returning
scorers — Eric Piatkowski and Carl
Hayes.
"Piatkowski should have a good
year, and so should Hayes,” Vitale
said. “But you’re going to miss the
big guy (former 7-foot 2-inch Husker
center) Rich King. That’ll hurt.”
The key to Nebraska having future
success, Vitale said, will be Nee’s
ability to consistently recruit blue
chip recruits.
"If you can set up a recruiting
scenario where you’re bringing in top
notch players all the lime — two or
three a year — then you’re on you’re
way,” he said.
One advantage Nebraska has over
most other Big Eight schools, Vitale
said, is the advantage of already hav
ing a strong football program on which
to build.
“You’ve got a great showcase there
on the football Saturdays,” Vitale said.
“All of that, if carefully planned, can
blend together with basketball.”
And if Danny Nee and Nebraska
continue to grow and succeed, look
for Dickie V to make a Lincoln ap
pearance in the next few years.
“Maybe one day they’ll get me
down to Nebraska country and I can
start shouting ‘ Danny Nee, baby! The
Huskers, baby! Move over Osborne,
Danny Nee’s the king of the campus!
The red and white, baby!”’
“It’s hoop lime,” he said.
And now., not even the calendar
can argue with Dick Vitale.
Adkisson is a junior news-editorial major
and a Daily Nebraskan staff reporter.
Buffalo fans ungracious;
NU will lose anyway
It’s here again. The big one.
THE game for Nebraska football
fans.
Nebraska vs. Colorado. Hi-ho!
Gone are the days of Oklahoma
and Barry Switzer, of Sooner magic
and loudmouth, cocky players from
both teams exchanging unplcasan
tries for weeks before the game.
Those were the old days of Com
husjeer football. This is 1991.
Taking the place of funny-dress
ing, accent-laden Oklahoma foot
ball fans are drunken, obscenity
spewing, rock-throwing, car-van
dalizing Colorado fans, who have
been losers for so long, none of
them know how to win graciously.
Win graciously? To Buffalo sup
porters (no pun intended), this is a
contradiction in terms.
Chuck
Green
Growing up as a Husker fan, I
can remember haling Oklahoma,
like any red-blooded Nebraskan. Ii
was a requirement. The way Switzer
and his teams used to wait until the
game’s last two or three minutes to
send Nebraska’s national-title
dreams spinning down the toilet
and then talk about how they were
the best around, it made one want
to vomit. Again and again, every
November.
The worst fans in the Big Eight
then? Hands down, they were Mis
souri’s. The Tigers. The filthy,
black-and-gold cheap-shot artists
from Columbia, Mo., and their
Warren Powers-taught injury-in
flicting techniques (Sec Jarvis
Rcdwine, 1979 and 1980, Turner
Gill, 1982, etc., etc.). .*
And their fans loved it, all the
while befuddled as to why Ne
braska Coach Tom Osborne would
gel so upset just because one of
Missouri’s players took out his star
I-back’s knee on an extra-point
attempt.
But with the decline in thccarly
1980s of both of those programs,
my haired subsided.
As I got older and began to
understand that Nebraska’s program
was the most overrated in the coun
try, my love for the Huskers soon
waned. Then long about the mid
1980s, I out-and-out lost almost all
appreciation for the Huskers, for
various reasons which would be
libelous to write here.
After all, you can’t like a team
you don’t respect.
B ut then came the emergence of
the Colorado football program as
one to be reckoned with in the Big
Eight.
In 1986, when the Buffs beat
Nebraska for the first time in 970
years (18 actually), I remember
sitting in the stadium, drenched
with beer, courtesy of those wacky
Colorado fans, wondering if I was
dreaming.
Colorado? The joke of college
football throughout the late-1970s
and early-1980s? A powerhouse?
No way, I remember thinking. This
will pass. They’re just a flash in the
pan.
Uh-huh.
Four years later, the Buffs win a
national title, thanks to a clip by a
Notre Dame safety on a game
winning punt return last Jan. 1.
Sickening. Absolutely sickening.
The worst part was not the fact
that Colorado won the champion
ship. After all, the Buffs played a
tough schedule and got through it
with only one loss. They were
deserving of every honor they got.
But it’s those fans. Those jerk
fans. God, I hate those fans.
If this country is ever under
nuclear attack, I vole for Boulder,
Colo., as the target of the first
strike.
Buff fans have made Boulder
the Miami of the mountains. When
those two teams meet in Boulder in
1993, there will be deaths in the
stands. Which is fine ...
But this week, the Huskers will
take their high-powered offense and
No. 9 ranking to Boulder for an
ESPN-tclcviscd game in the snow
and cold.
Husker fans arc out for blood,
just like last season. Last year, from
the start of the season to the day
before the game, Nebraska faithful
continuously thought with their
hearts instead of their heads. They
predicted a smashing victory for
Nebraska, and hurt Colorado play
ers strewn from end /.one to end
zone.
The result? A four-touchdown
fourth-quarter effort from the Buffs
against an overrated Nebraska
defense and a lot of angry Husker
fans who couldn’t sleep for weeks.
Expect the same this season.
There probably won’t be any fourth
quarter heroics. This time, Colo
rado will lake it to Nebraska from
start to finish.
The crowd will roar. The Buffs
will talk trash. The Huskers will
wet their pants. Osborne will call
Colorado a great team. Nebraska
fans will call for Osborne’s and
defensive coordinator Charlie
McBride’s heads on a platter. People
will write letters to the editor tell
ing the “fair-weather Husker fans’’
to move to Colorado, if they don’t
like the way Osborne does things.
Things have become way too
predictable around here lately.
Green is a senior news-editorial ma
jor, the Daily Nebraskan’s assistant
sports editor and a columnist
