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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 22, 1993)
Piatkowski eligible for NCAA disability insurance plan By Jeff Griesch Senior Reporter Nebraska basketball player Eric Piatkowski has moved into an elite group of athletes by being named eligible to be covered by the NCAA athletes’ insurance policy. A1 Papik, associate athletic director at Ne braska, said Piatkowski had qualified for a $500,000 insurance policy under the NCAA’s Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Pro gram. Piatkowski, a 6-7 senior from Rapid City, S.D., has been accepted into the plan, but has not finalized the policy by signing all the paperwork, Papik said. Piatkowski is one of 30 nominees for the John Wooden Award as the nation’s top basket ball player and picked as a preseason honorable mention All-American by Street & Smith and The Sporting News. He also was picked as one of the top 25 candidates for National Player of the Year honors by the U.S. Basketball Writers Associ ation. The insurance program was established two years ago as an attempt to protect athletes who could not afford expensive insurance coverage from private firms, Papik said. “The program is designed to keep athletes from trying to get money for the insurance in some kind of way that would be a violation,” Papik said. “In private plans, the athletes have to pay up-front, and the premiums are more than a student can afford.” The program uses an extensive rating sys tem to determine the probability of an athlete’s being drafted in the first or second round in the professional sports of football, basketball, base ball or ice hockey, Papik said. The program began in 1990, and participa tion is limited to 110 athletes in the four sports. The only other Nebraska athletes covered by the program are Calvin Jones and Trev Alberts. Jones has $500,000 worth of coverage, and Alberts is covered for $1 million. Nebraska basketball coach Danny Nee said Piatkowski was lucky to be accepted into the plan, but still had a lot of work to do before he could be drafted in the high rounds of the NBA draft. “He is fortunate, and it means that he is qualified for the insurance, but he still has to play a lot of basketball between now and the draft,” Nee said. Papik said an athlete’s ranking for eligibility in the program was based on information re ceived from scouting combines. The United Missouri Bank uses the informa tion from the scouting combine to determine if it is a safe risk to loan the money to the athlete to pay for the policy premium. The policy is provided by the American Specialty Under writers of Woburn, Mass. For a $500,000 policy, Papik said, the pre mium is almost $6,000,plus a7 percent interest rate. Game dav ^ W shown at 8 a.n Nebraska .m. ETV (delayed, shown at 8 a.m. Sunday) QB 15 Tommie Frazier 6-2 200 FB 40CorySchlesinger 6-0 220 IB 44 Calvin Jones 5-11215 SE 2 Corey Dixon 5-11200 WB 27 Abdul Muhammad 5-9 160 RT 72 Zach Wiegert 6-5 300 LT 77 Lance Lundberg 6-4 300 RG 66 Brenden Stai 6-4 300 LG 56 Rob Zatechka 6-5 300 C 62 Ken Mehlin 6-0 275 TE 95 Gerald Armstrong 6-2 225 PK 13 Byron Bennett 6-1 180 QB 11 Jeff Handy 6-3 210 FB 31 Antwan Johnson 6-1 213 TB 23 Raphael Tiger* Boyd 6-0 202 WR 7 Brian Sallee 6-3 202 WR 81 Kenny HoNy 6-0 178 RT 75 Trey O'Neil 6-6 267 LT 71 Tim Alvarado 6-7 267 RG 79 Mike Bedosky 6-5 288 LG 62 Matt Pearce I 6-3 266 C 69 Matt Burgess 6-3 272 TE 89 A.J. Ofodile 6-7 260 PK 19 Kyle Pooler 6-0 186 DEFENSE LOLB 84 Donta Jones 6-2 220 DE 99 Chris Whlls 6-3 231 DT 67 Kevin Ramaekers 6-4 290 DT 98 Steve Martin 6-5 291 NT 99 Terry Connealy 6-5 275 NT 72 George Hunt HI 6-3 288 ROLB 34 Trev Alberts 6-4 240 DE 92 Damon Simon 6-5 250 SAM 23 Ernie Beier 5-11200 LB 55 Darryl Major 6-2 238 MIKE 48 Mike Anderson 6-2 230 LB 39 Travts McDonald 6-2 220 WILL 32 Ed Stewart 6-1 215 LC 15 Kevin Mdntosh 60 175 LCB 14 Barron Miles 5-8 160 RC 22 Jason Oliver 5-10169 RCB 6 John Reece _ 6-0 200 FS 21 Andre White ^ 6-1 196 ROV 3 Toby Wright 6-1 200 RV 40 Jerome Madteon 60 183 FS 4 Troy Dumas 6-3 215 SS 6 Javan Lenhardt 6-1 194 P 13 Byron Bennett 6-1 180 P 19 Kyle Pooler 60 186 ON graphic Hibner Continued from Page 7 winning coach just for the sake of gender equity,” Hibner said. When openings have occurred, she said, the university has done a good job of hiring women for those posi tions. The athletic department has hired women like Rhonda Revelle for softball and Angela Beck for basket ball. • Instead of competing against men’s sports, Hibner said, some men’s and women’s sports have been combined to create more unity. Sports like men’s and women’s swimming and diving and track and field have been combined under one coach. Hibner said the teams then travel together, which cuts costs. Hibner said it was that kind of cooperation that athletic department officials need to emphasize. “We shouldn ’ t be looking at this as ‘he’ and ‘she,’ but as ‘we, she said. Now that the athletic department is combining men’s and women’s sports to streamline and create unity, one more step needs to be taken, Hibner said. “I think what we need more than anything,” she said, “is a sensitivity to the need of marketing and promoting of women’s sports.” Huskers try to put losses behind them By Tim Pearson Senior Report* The Nebraska volleyball team is third in the Big Eight with two confer ence losses. But the Comhuskers can’t do any thing about those losses now, setter Nikki Strieker said. Strieker said the Huskers just had to put their losses to Oklahoma and Colorado behind them going into the remainder of the season. The No. 16 Huskers, 14-3, will go for their fourth conference victory against Missouri Saturday night in Columbia, Mo. Missouri comes into the match with an 8-11 record on the season. The Huskers are 3-2 in the confer ence and trail Colorado and Oklaho ma, which are tied for first at 4-0. “I can’t speak for the rest of the Swimming, diving squads to open season at home From Staff Reports The Nebraska men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will open their season this weekend in the Pump kin Classic at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. The meet begins Friday at 5:30 p.m., continues Saturday at 10 a.m., and concludes Sunday, starting at 8:30 a.m. The men begin their season in search of a 14th-straight Big Eight title. Nebraska coach Cal Bentz said he was anxious to see both teams perform. Admission is free for students and $2 for the general public. team, but I haven’t looked at the standings, and I normally don’t,” Strieker said. “When we just take care of ourselves, we do belter.” Husker coach Terry Pettit said this year’s team wasn’t any different from past Nebraska teams. “This team, probably on some nights, is stronger than last year’s team,” he said. “In terms of win-loss percentage, we’re where we always are. “We just lost two tough road match es.” Strieker, who needs 105 set assists to break Val Novak’s school record of 3,303 career set assists, said the two losses gave the Huskers a new per spective. “Every year I’ve been here, the team has come to a low spot where we haven’t played well or had a bad weekend," she said. “But it’s where you go after that low spot that mat ters/ Sophomore m iddle blocker Allison Weston said the losses were a big deal for the Huskers. “We learned a lot about ourselves, and we can only get better because of it," she said. The Huskers have had a week off since their last match, a three-game win over Kansas. Strieker said the week off would benefit the Huskers in preparing for their next three match es. “We’ve been working on all three teams, a little of Missouri, Kansas State, and Colorado," Strieker said. “But mainly we’ve been working on our own play. “This is the time for us to make our adjustments." NU men’s golf ties for 10th; women finish second at Kansas RpmSUItRyom ---- The Nebraska men's golf team shot a final round 313 on Tuesday to finish tied for 10th place at the Fairfield Bay/Pepsi Intercollegiate Golf Invitational in Fairfield Bay, Ark. The Comhuskers finished with a two-round total of 617, which was 45 strokes behind team-cham pion Mississippi. Todd Kruger, who finished in a tie for ninth by shooting a 146 over two rounds. The Nebraska women’s golf team finished in second at the Marilyn Smith/Jayhawk Invitation al in Lawrence, Kan., on Tuesday. The Comhuskcrs posted a three round total of 943 after a final round of 346 to finish 24 strokes behind Oklahoma State. The Husk ers shot team scores of323 and 304 in the first two rounds on Monday. Kim Lefler was Nebraska’s top ind ividual finisher, shooting a three round total of 235. Lefler finished in seventh place, while Melissa Odell finished eighth with a 236. CHOCOLATE THE ULTIMATE STRESS RELIEVER Russell Stover Sampler 99<j: value 2 oz. assorted chocolates Russell Stover Pecan Delight Bar 99<(: value 2 1 /2 oz. pecan & caramel confection Hershey's Cookies 'n' Mint trial size Nestle Buncha Crunch NEW 1.4 oz. bite size Crunch pieces Butterfinger BB's NEW 1.7 oz. bite size Butterfinger pieces Lower Level Nebraska Union SALE 59<t 69$ 10<(: 40<f: 40<(: Garden Level East Union Equity Continued from Page 1 that wc want to hire as many women coaches as possible, but we also want a coach who can run a nationally competitive program,” he said. Spanier said the UNL athletic de partment was trying to achieve gen der equity in the number of coaches and athletes. But Spanier said an equal number of men’s ami women’s sports didn’t necessarily mean an equal number of scholarships. “We’re trying to make the athletic experience equivalent in every re spcct except for strict proportionalities in the number of scholarships,” he said. “I don’t expect us to get 50^-50. That’s not my idea of gender equity.” Spanier said the football team need ed a larger number of scholarships. No women’s team needs that many, he said. The football team currently is al lotted 88 scholarships. That number will be reduced to 85 next year. “We look at women’s volleyball as the equivalent to football,” Spanier said. “The women’s volleyball team has everything^ good as the football players have. The numbers are never going to be exactly equal. There’s no way we could reach 50-50." Spanier said UNL’s views on gen der equity probably matched other universities1 views. “Most all of our coaches support this program,” he said. “I think most of the people around the state of Ne braska support the philosophy.