Sports
Tuesday, December 6,1994 Page 7
' ■' . •. " .... ■' . it
Huskers hope to mirror 1983 in all ways but one
By Derek Samson
Senior Reporter
In 1983, Nebraska had one of the most
explosive offenses in the history of college
football.
The Comhuskers started off the season
with a win in tne kickott
Classic and finished the
regular season with a 12
0 record and a No. 1 rank
ing.
On Jan. 2, it lost 31-30
to Miami in the Orange
Bowl. However, that 1983
team is still considered by
many to be the best Ne
Stelnkuhler braska team ever.
This year, the Comhuskers ran through
West Virginia in the Kickoff Classic and
have kept a perfect mark going into the
Orange Bowl against Miami.
With offensive tackle Zach Wiegert a
finalist for the Lombardi Trophy and a fa
vorite for the Outland Award, it strikes an
other similarity with the 1983 team: Dean
Steinkuhler.
Wiegert finished behind Miami’s Warren
Sapp for the Lombardi Award. A consensus
All-American in 1983, Steinkuhler came
away with both the Lombardi and Outland
Awards, the last Husker lineman to earn
both.
But Steinkuhler didn’t land the trophy
that the 1983 team featuring Turner Gill,
Mike Rozier and Irving Fryar set out to win
— the national championship.
“Our team still gets talked about highly
by many people in Nebraska, and that makes
it (1983 season) special,” Steinkuhler said
from his home in Syracuse. “We were a great
team, but we didn’t get accomplished what
we had set out to do. That’s a disappoint
ment that I could never forget, and I hope
this year’s team doesn’t have to deal with it,
too.”
Steinkuhler — who played eight years
with the Houston Oilers — was an assistant
coach for Syracuse High School this fall and
is now in the process of building a new
home.
The only opportunities the former offen
sive guard has had to watch the Huskers this
year are the televised games.
From what he has seen, Steinkuhler said
he would give the edge to this year’s squad
in a comparison to the 1983 team.
“I don’t know if you can really compare
because it’s over a decade of difference
between the two,” he said. “I would like to
think we had a very good offensive team,
especially at that time. Overall, I’d have to
say they are probably better because they
have a better defense.”
After coming within a 2-point conversion
of winning the national championship in
1983, Steinkuhler said it was especially dif
ficult to watch Nebraska come within a field
goal of doing the same in the 18-16 Orange
Bowl loss to Florida State last year.
“I really ’felt bad after that game, mainly
because of the way Nebraska outplayed
Florida State and still lost,” he said. “Coach
(Tom) Osborne deserves to win the national
championship and so do the players.
“Last year’s team deserved that, and I felt
bad for the players because I know how they
felt. It’s a tough thing to swallow.”
As this season unfolds much like the 1983
season, Steinkuhler did not hide his feelings
about the final parallel between 1983 and
1994.
“If we end up playing Miami in the Or
ange Bowl, then once again, Nebraska will
start with a disadvantage,” he said. “When
you play a Florida team in the Orange Bowl,
not only do they have the advantage with the
climate, but with the fan support. It’s worth
three to seven points. So this year, Nebraska
will have to be just that much better.”
Steinkuhler said he wanted Nebraska to
beat Miami for the Husker teams that have
fallen to the Hurricanes in the past, espe
cially in 1983.
“I played with and against guys in the
NFL that were on their championship team
(in 1983),” he said. “They don’t let you
forget it. They never did. So I would love to
beat them this year in the Orange Bowl for
the national championship.”
Nee says competition,
not execution, lacking
By Todd Walkmhortt
Staff Reporter
Nebraska coach Danny Nee said
that he was pleased with his team’s
performance in the eighth annual
Ameritas Classic last weekend but
was disappointed with the lack of
competition.
The Huskers won the seventh
consecutive* Ameritas Classic by
soundly defeating both Morehead
State and Idaho State over the week
end.
“I thought there would be a lot
more competition in the Ameritas
Classic,” he said. ‘‘I thought the
games would be closer.”
Nee said Nebraska’s dominance
was mainly because of the play of
guards Jaron Boone, Erick
Strickland and Jason Glock.
“Glock was open every time he
moved this weekend,” Nee said. “I
thought a lot of people played at
real high levels. I thought both days
Nebraska played good basketball.”
Despite two impressive victo
ries, the Cornhuskers still had areas
of their game to work on, including
ball handling.
Many players received valuable
playing time this weekend, includ
ing sophomore center Mikki Moore.
“Mikki Moore has done a real
good job around the basket block
ing a tot of shots,” Nee said. “I’m
really pleased that he got more play
ing time.”
In addition to Moore, the Husk
ers played pressure defense with
Boone, Tom Wald, Terrance
Badgett and Melvin Brooks, Nee
said.
“I felt the quickness and agility
of our players hindered Morehead
State’s shots,” Nee said. “When
you can hold people to those kind of
numbers, you’ve got to be happy.”
Nebraska will face Creighton on
Wednesday night and No. 15 Michi
gan State on Saturday afternoon in
a game that will be televised by
ABC.
“It’s a big week for Nebraska
basketball,” Nee said. “We are go
ing to try to get the students in
volved by letting them in early and
(giving them) T-shirts.”
Nee said that he was disappointed
that more students were not buying
season tickets this year. Student
season ticket sales declined by about
700 this year.
“I’m disappointed,” Nee said.
“There are a lot of students that
work and do other things. It (at
tending games) is more of an alumni
thing, but I like it when the students
are there.”
JaffHaltor/DN
Nebraska's Melvin Brooks grabs tho ball away from Idaho State’s Jim Potter In the championship
game of tho Amerltas Classic Saturday. Tho Huskers will face Creighton Wednesday and
Michigan State Saturday.
NU volleyball steals the sports spotlight from football
Are you ready for showtime?
Well, it doesn’t matter. Because
even if you aren’t, it’s here.
Showtime has arrived, and it’s in
the form of NCAA volleyball. The
No. 1 Nebraska volleyball team
rocked the NU Coliseum Saturday,
playing in the most exciting match
of the season and winning its first
match of the 1994 NCAA tourna
ment over George Washington.
In the year of the undefeated,
untouchable Nebraska football
team, the unthinkable has happened.
The mighty Huskers have been
upstaged. And it’s not even another
football team that’s upstaged them.
They’ve been upstaged by the
Husker volleyball team.
Since the two seasons began back
in August and September, I have sat
in the press box and covered every
home football game and four road
games. Not once did I want to stand
up and cheer even close to as much
as I did Saturday night while sitting
in the press area during the first
game of the volleyball match.
Be careful. Don’t go calling me
any names or wondering about my
mental state. If you haven’t been to
a volleyball match, you won’t know
what I am talking about.
Now, if the Huskers win the Or
ange Bowl, it might be a different
story, but as of right now, I am
declaring the volleyball team the
official most exciting team on cam
pus.
The atmosphere at the Coliseum
was unbelievable Saturday night.
And when this BIG Russian girl
from Moscow started to slam the
ball through the floor in the pre
match warmups^you kind of sensed
something special was about to hap
pen.
Once again, if you didn’t see
Svetlana Vtyurina, you absolutely
cannot get a sense of how large this
woman is.
I mean that with with all due
respect, Ms. Vtyurina.
Sveta, as she is affectionately
referred to by her coaches, fans and
teammates, is more like a Russian
cannon than a Russian rifle.
To get somewhat of an idea of
what she looks like, picture Ne
braska basketball player Mikki
Mitch
Sherman
Moore.
OK, now Sveta is seven inches
shorter than Mikki, but she weighs
about 30 pounds more than
Nebraska’s starting center. And her
hair is a little different, too.
Then, as if the Russian rocket
wasn’t enough for the Husker
spikers to worry about, another one
of the George Washington players
started to warm up. Her name, Liu
Li, is pronounced the same forward
as it is backward, but that really
isn’t important.
Li served.
First, she went back behind the
serve line. Way behind the serve
line. It looked like she was leaving
the Coliseum. But she stopped
somewhere under the stands.
Instead of a normal serve where
a player bends her elbow approxi
mately 90 degrees and strikes the
ball with her hand, Li rotated her
arm, apparently showing off the
fact that either she has no joints or
her elbow has been surgically al
tered.
She did this side windmill kind
of thing, and the ball cleared the net
by the hair on Nebraska coach Terry
Pettit’s head. Then it started to go
up. 1 seriously think I saw Li’s
serve go into the stands of the Coli
seum, hover over some guy’s head,
spin around and come back toward
the court.
Three Huskers dove, but it was a
hopeless cause. The volleyball was
magnetically attracted to the floor.
Li is from Harbin, China. She
attended Qi Qi Har No. 10 School.
I’m not sure what Qi Qi Har means
in Chinese, but I think it has some
thing to do with a magical serve
able to defy the laws of gravity.
All of this happened before the
match even started. When it finally
did start, what a treat it was. Back
and forth. Back and forth. Li,
Allison Weston, Kelly Aspegren,
Vtyurina, Peggy Meyer.
I almost jumped out of my chair
when Meyer blocked the kill at
tempt of Sveta to win the heart
wrenching first game 17-15.
From that point on, everything
was anticlimactic. And the Huskers
took care of business. They get a
chance to do it all again on Friday
when Colorado comes to town.
Nebraska, with a win, will finish
off a pretty complete job of revenge
on the Buffaloes, who took the con
ference crown from Nebraska last
year.
Not only did Nebraska take the
title back, they can end Colorado's
season for good Friday by beating
the Buffaloes for the fourth time
this year.
But if you are reading this and
you got excited all of a sudden
about volleyball, you had better act
quickly. Only a few general admis
sion tickets remain.
If not, you will just have to wait
until the Orange Bowl.
Sherman b a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan senior reporter.