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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 1993)
Sports NelSraskan Thursday, August 5,1993 Scholarship reduction ends Steer’s NU career By Derek Samson Staff Reporter With the blink of an eye, Tom Steer’s lifelong dream of playing foot ball for Nebraska was over. Steer’s football days at Nebraska ended last spring when he was in formed by Osborne that he would be given a medical scholarship and not be allowed to continue playing foot ball. “At the end of spring ball, every player goes in and has a quick meeting with Coach Osborne,” Steer said. “I was expecting to hear everything was going good like I did the year before. “Instead, I was told I had the option of cither accepting a medical scholar ship or transferring schools.” The medical scholarship would pay for the rest of Steer’s school, but would not allow him to play football. “Basically, they cut me and felt bad about doing it so they offered me a medical scholarship,” he said. “They fell that would justify it.” Steer, a former all-state player for Crete, said he had recovered from the hamstring injury that caused him to be offered a medical scholarship. “I only lost one-tenth of a second off my 40 (yard dash) time and it wasn’t because of my hamstring be cause I’m recovered from that,” he said. “They thought it was because of the injury, but I think it was because I beefed up for them.” Osborne said the need to get Ne braska under the NCAA-imposed 88 players on scholarship played a role in Steer being placed on medical schol Strength coach pleased despite stadium construction uy Derek Samson Staff Reporter Nebraska football players wrapped up their summer of strength and con ditioning training Tuesday night and strength coach Boyd Eplcy said was pleased with the Comhuskers' perfor mance. “It was a consistent effort,” Epley said. “It’s hard to compare it to years in the past, but I can say the players arc real focused on this season.” Problems which complicated the summer workouts were the weather and work being done on Memorial Stadium. Players had to move from the west stadium strength complex area for three weeks because of stadium in spections. They also had to use the freshmen locker area in the north sta dium because of a locker room re modeling project lasting all summer. Painting also kept them off Memorial Stadium’s artificial turf. “We’ve had an awfully strange summer with all the rain and the con struction,” Epley said. “It’s been just one adjustment after another.” Summer workouts are on an op tional basis, Epley sai(J, but Coaches encourage players to workout four days a week. “Since it’s voluntary, it is a differ ent number all the lime,” he said. “One night we m ight have 85 and then the next only have 45 in there.” Kevin Ram ackers, Calvin Jones and Zach Wicgert were among play ers Epley said showed excellent lead ership during the summer. In the weight room, Epley said M ike Anderson and Gerald Armstrong were standouts, but offensive guard Brcndcn Slai highlighted the summer lifting program. “Brcnden Slai has done an out standing job,” he said. “He is closing in on breaking the school bench press record of500 pounds (set by Lawrence Pete) ” -44 Basically, they cut me and felt bad about doing It so they tit tered me a medical scholarship. They felt that would justify it — Steer former Nebraska Wingback -tt - arship. He said Slccr had nol recov ered his speed after suffering ham string pulls. Steer also suffered a bro ken hand. “Obviously, we have a numbers problem here because we had 95 schol r arships two years ago and 88 this year,” he said. “Any player who is not 100 percent is somewhat subject to being placed on some other status.” Osborne said the coaching staff felt placing Steer on medical scholar ship was the fairest decision. “We felt the fairest thing for Tom — he was probably fifth or sixth on the depth chart at wingback—we felt the fairest thing we could do was give him a chance to finish his education by pulling him on a medical scholar ship,” he said. Osborne said the NCAA-imposed limits would cause more situations like Steer’s in the future. “You are going to see more of this,” he said. “You arc going to have more and more incidents where peo ple (medically) can’t play and and we can’t keep them on scholarship.” The lough part now for Steer now is the decision he has to make. “I’m healthy and I have a lot of potential, but now it’s just a matter of what to do,” Steer said. “I always wanted to play for the Big Red and now the hardest part is explaining to people exactly what happened. “A lot of people think it is because of grades, but my grade point average is a 2.9, so that has nothing to do with it.” Steer said he was looking into play ing at some Division II schools, in cluding the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “The way I look at it is you’re only young once and only able to play this game for so long, so you might as well lake advantage of being able to play.” KHey Tlmpertey/DN Going for Gold Former University of Nebraska-Uncoln student Todd Reynolds figure skates his way to a gold medal with his partner Karen Courtland during the U.S. Olympic Festival in San Antonio. The games, which included several UNL athletes, concluded on Sunday. NU quarterback brings new optimism to Big Red fever uk, so mayoe it is tnc ume ot year when Bi£ Red fever begins to rise and expectations are at their pedes. Maybe it is the same attitude of optimism that the stale of Nebraska f;ets every August that is turned into rustration every January. Maybe Nebraska will continue to be cheated by pollsters and Nebraska fans will keep griping about running the ball too much, despite having a Heisman Trophy candidate at run ning back. But this year should be different. This year should be different be cause Nebraska will return toward the top of the college rankings, and finish ranked as high as fourth or fifth na tionally. What makes this season any differ* ent from last year or any other year? One giant reason is Nebraska is heading into the season with a talent ed, experienced quarterback. Not since Steve Taylor have Comhusker fans known and felt good about their quar terback before the season began. Tommie Frazier proved to the na tion he could handle the pressure of big games when he led Nebraska to consecutive routs over rated Big Eight opponents Colorado and Kansas. Another reason is the schedule, which could be improved by adding a high school Class C team. In past years, Nebraska usually had one Or two very strong non-con ference opponents, like Washington. This year, the only name that jumps out is UCLA, and the Bruins are far from a national power anymore. The Big Eight is improving with Derek Samson the rise of Kansas, but other than the Colorado gampin Boulder, the Husk ers should breeze through the sched ule. The best Big Eight contest in Lincoln will be with Iowa State, as Husker fans may see Nebraska hit triple digits in a effort at revenge. But then its on to the Orange Bowl to play a Florida team in the snake pit they call a field. Although the Huskers did lose their sixth-straight bowl game 27-14 to Florida State last year, it was not even close to the embarrassment they en dured in four out of the five previous bowl games, with losses like 45-21 and 41-17. The game could have easily had been much closer. Nebraska was only a couple bad bounces away from making Florida Stale, who many ar gue were the best team in the nation, really start to sweat. Nebraska has the personnel this year to end that losing streak and surprise 9 lot of people. It has one of the two best running backs in the country in Calvin Jones and probably the best linebacker core in the nation. Not to mention another mammoth offensive line. If the Huskers can gel through the season without any major letdowns and go into the bowl game with an unblemished record, prepare yourself lo see a classic championship game. Nebraska can match-up much belter this year than in the past. Nobody would deserve it more than coach Tom Osborne. As the Big Red faithful criticize him throughout the ofT-season for losing to Florida State and only winning nine games, he quietly prepares to produce anoth er 20 team. vever, this one should be the best since his 1983 Huskers. Maybe it is just a severe case of Big Red fever, but it is time for Nebraska lo climb back up to the ranks from where it has slipped as one of the top powerhouses in college football. Samson is a sophomore news-editorial major and a Summer Daily Nebraskan sports reporter.