Sports
r _ .
Crowd din
lends edge
to teams
Noisy fans may
add point factor
By Nick Hytrek
Senior Reporter_
You won’t hear Nebraska football
coach Tom Osborne asking for in
creased crowd noise against Colorado
Saturday.
But Osborne left the impression
that he would like to hear a lot of noise
from the fans.
“I don’t want to be in a position
where I’m asking for anything,”
Osborne said. “There’s no question
that crowds and fans do make a d i f fer
encc. It would be nice sometime to
play in our stadium where I thought it
was a 10-poinl stadium. That would
be helpful.”
Osborne said a noisy crowd was a
big factor and, in some cases, it was
like points on the scoreboard for the
home team. Miami was one of those
teams that benefited from such a
crowd, he said.
“I know (Louisville and former
Miami Coach) Howard
Schnellcnbcrgcr mentioned that he
fell that the Orange Bowl, if you’re
coaching at the University of Miami,
is about a 10-point factor and 1 suspect
that’s true.”
I he Lomhuskers have played Mi
ami in the Orange Bowl three limes
since 1984 and has lost each time,
most recently a 22-0 loss in January.
It isn’t the only time Nebraska has
been on the road and the home team’s
crowd made a difference. In
Nebraska’s 29-14 loss to Washington
in Seattle this season, Osborne said
the fans played a major role.
“I suspect that the University of
Washington stadium that night was
worth a few points, and I think a fair
number of points,” he said.
Against Missouri last Saturday,
however, the crowd noise didn T bother
the Huskers, Osborne said.
\
“Down at Missouri the other day I
didn’t think that the crowd probably
made that much difference,” he said.
At Nebraska, it isn’t often that the
fans have an impact on the game’s
outcome, Osborne said.
“Here in Lincoln, I don’t very of
ten think that it’s a very significant
factor,” he said. “There’s a lot of
games when it’s not a factor at all.
There’s some games when maybe it’s
three points.”
But that’s not to take anything
away from Husker fans,Osborne said.
“Our fans arc good Ians and I ap
preciate the fact that they’ve shown
good sportsmanship,” he said.
- ' oiciu ivrcrvee/uiN
Nebraska’s Nikki Strieker (12) and Stephanie Thater attempt a block against Colorado on Saturday at the NU Coliseum. The
Cornhuskers host Kansas tonight in a 7:30 p.m. match.
Pettit says Huskers can do better
Kansas at Nebraska
- 7:30 p.m. Wednesday -
NU Coliseum
Nebraska (13-2, 7-0)
Stephanie Thater 6-2 MB
Eileen Shannon 6-0 OH
Kim Tonniges 5-11 OH
Laura Luther 6-0 OH
Allison Weston 6-0 OH
Nikki Strieker 5-10 S
Kansas (17-11, 1-5)
Barb Bella 6-3 MB
Kim DeHoff 6-1 MB
Cyndee Kanabel 5-9 MB
Julie Larkin 5-8 OH
Jenny Larson 5-9 MB/OH
Lesli Steinert 5-9 S
w
Coach looking
for improvement
against Kansas
By Jeremy Fitzpatrick
Staff Reporter _
Improvement.
Thai’s what Nebraska volleyball
coach Terry Pettit is looking for when
his team meets Kansas at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday at the NU Coliseum.
“I think there were some things we
didn’t do as well as we liked against
Kansas (in the two teams’ first meet
ing on Oct. 7),” Pettit said. “Our match
down there wasn’t particularly clean.
“We played well for a couple of
games, but in one of the games we let
them into the match a little bit and
then we went ahead and shut them
out.”
Pettit said he was pleased with the
Comhuskers’ recent performance —
including Nebraska’s sweep of Colo
rado last Saturday — but said Ne
braska needed to do even better be
Iwecn now and December.
“At this point, it’s just very impor
tant for us to keep getting better and
better all the time,” he said. “You
have to play great volleyball in De
cember, so you need to improve as
much from Oct. 30 to Dec. 1 as you
did from September to October.
“It’s a lot of refinement — but I’m
optimistic that we’ve had a lot of
improvement over the last two or
three weeks.”
Nebraska won its Oct. 7 match
against Kansas in three games — 15
12,15-8,15-10 — raising its all-time
record against the Jayhawks to 49-0.
Pettit said he was not expecting
any surprises from 17-11 Kansas this
lime.
“They run a system very similar to
Colorado,” he said. “They’ve run it
for several years. Some of the people
have changed, but the system is the
same.
“So from that standpoint, we know
what they arc going to do.”
Three Nebraskans — sophomore
Janet Uhcr and freshmen Tracic Wall
and Jenny Larson — play lor the
Jayhawks. Former Husker All-Ameri
can Karen (Dahlgrcn) Schoncwise is
the Jayhawks’ .assistant coach.
Pettit said those tics to Nebraska
“ ft* -
At this point, it's just
very important for us
to keep getting better
and better all the
time.
Pettit
Nil volleyball coach
-99 ~
would work to the Jayhawks’ advan
tage.
“I think they have a lot ol pride,”
he said. “Their assistant coach is one
of the greatest players ever to play
here — her jersey is retired.
“She has a lot of pride, and I think
they will want to play hard for her if
nothing else.”
Kansas player sees pal on other side of net
By Tim Pearson
Staff Reporter_
Tonight against Nebraska, Kansas
outside hillcr/middlc blocker Jenny
Larson will becoming home and see
ing an old friend in the process.
Larson, a freshman from Millard
North, will be reunited with former
high school teammate and current
Cornhuskcr Christy Johnson in
tonight’s 7:30 match at the NU Coli
seum.
The Jay hawks, 17-11 and 1-5 in
Ihc Big Eight, will try to bring the
Huskers’ 53-game conference streak
to a hall.
Earlier this season, the two teams
met in Lawrence, Kan.,and the Husk
ers prevailed in a 15-12, 15-8, 15-10
win.
Larson said in that match, she ex
perienced something different than
what she was used to.
“It was weird seeing Christy on the
other side of the net,” she said. “1 tried
to concentrate on my game.”
Larson has gained a starting spot in
the Jayhawks’ lineup.
Her coach, Frankie Albitz, said he
had been pleased with Larson’s play.
“She’s done a real good job,” she
said. “She’sa tremendous athlete with
a great attitude.”
In the first match against Nebraska,
Larson recorded ten kills and a .147
hitting percentage.
In high school, Larson set many
records, including the record for kills
in a season with 355 and digs in a
season and career.
Larson said lhai Johnson had been
a good influence for her.
“I really looked up lo her,” she
said. “She was always the hardest
working player.”
Larson and Johnson teamed up one
more lime last summer in the
Comhusker State Games.
“I noticed that Christy had stepped
up a level, with a year of college
behind her,” Larson said. “It was fun
lo hit off of her sets.
“I hope to have the same kind of
improvement after a year in college.”
McCartney and Bundy—separated at birth? —
The comparison dawned on me
sometime during Christmas break.
I was relaxing al home, remote
control in hand, flipping back and
forth between the end of the Block
buster Bowl and a rerun of Fox’s
“Married ... With Children.”
Just as Alabama was finishing off
Colorado in a 30-25 victory, Al Bundy
was about ready to take his family to
bask in the air conditioning of a gro
cery store.
Click. Bill McCartney.
Click. Al Bundy.
And then — click! — it came to
me: They’re one and the same.
You can see the similarity easily
by looking al them: Both arc average,
ordinary guys. It’s easy to visualize
each wearing a seed cap at the local
coffee shop talking about the sky
rockcling price of sorghum.
Bui beyond ihc facial similarities,
each has a big week ahead of him.
This week, A1 (played by actor Ed
O’Neill) will be dealing with hisdilzy
kids or taking care of the brat that his
John
Adkisson
wife’s relatives dropped off at their
front door.
McCartney, meanwhile, will be
readying his eighth-ranked Buffaloes
for their Saturday showdown against
Nebraska at Memorial Stadium.
A! has a job selling shoes.
Bill will be trying to sell the lact—
as he was to Big Eight sportswriters
on Monday—that his team is banged
up and that he doesn’t know if his
Buffs arc “playing as good as we have
to play to beat Nebraska.”
Sorry, Al — cr, Bill — but we’ve
heard that same song the last three
years.
Because his show is one of the
funniest and lewdest on the air, Al has
become one of the most popular guys
on television.
Because of the Buffs’ recent suc
cess, McCartney has become a star in
his own right.
Al is surrounded by lop-notch ac
tors and actresses like Christina
Applegate, who plays Bundy’s daugh
ter.
McCartney, too, has been able to
attract quality people. His list of re
cruits includes brilliant guys like full
back James Hill, who says in the
Colorado media guide that he would
have loved to live in the Stone Age “so
I could live in a cave.”
And then there’s Buffalo freshman
offensive lineman Chad Hammond,
who wanted to be the “guy on the road
crew that turns the slow-stop sign”
when he was younger.
A1 has wacky neighbors.
Bill has odd neighbors like Ne
braska coach Tom Osborne, who is
allowing starting quarterback Tommie
Frazier to stay silent until he barks out
the first signals of the Colorado game.
It seems strange that Osborne is
letting Frazier escape the glare of the
pregame media,especially with other
big contests — Kansas, Oklahoma
and a bowl — not that far down the
road.
A1 was a former high school foot
ball star and thinks back to his glory
days regularly.
Bill graduated from Riverview
High School in Riverview, Mich., and
earned letters in 11 sports. He was
captain of both the football and bas
See MCCARTNEY on 12
