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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 1995)
inside §1 I luesday Sports Nebraska defeats Long Beach State, page 7 Arts & Entertainment Billy Frogg’s Grill and Bar opens in the Haymarket, page 9 ; , :: ^ January 10, 1995 Husker products capture big bucks By Brian Sharp Senior R®x>rter Chris Bahl has seen it all. The University of Nebraska li censing coordinator has spent the last month exchanging four quarters of football for big profits with retailers. “If you can put Nebraska on it, chances are I’ve seen it,” he said. Final approval on any product with the NU logo must come, lfom Bahl. While forwarding an average of 100 requests every day, Bahl said some proposals had raised more than a few eyebrows. Take the request to print “Ne braska Comhuskers: 1994 National Champions” on a roll of toilet paper. “We told them we really didn’t want to do that,” Bahl said. But alongside the few proposals that are turned down, thousands are marketed. Requests are coming from everywhere, from the United States to Japan (a CD-ROM program), and for everything, Bahl said. There are T-shirts and sweatshirts galore, jackets, caps, mugs and door mats —“Hang it on the wall! Perfect as a gift!” An audio highlight tape of the 1994-95 championship season pro vides timeless memories of Kent Pavelka shouting “Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!” after Husker scores. Coins, watches, footballs, socks, earmuffs and even Waterford crystal announce that Nebraska is, indeed, top dog in the football realm. “It’s huge,” Bahl said of the mer chandising rush. “It’s just incred ible.” James Cornell, general manager of Nebraska Bookstore, 1300 Q St., said sales of championship products had doubled expectations. And with students returning for classes, there has been a second surge in sales, he said. “Sports Illustrated is the hot ticket today,” Cornell said, “besides Econ 101. “It does seem like it’s busier than - the normal rush (of past days). Then again, I don’t know if any rush is normal.” Cornell said the store had been getting shipments every day since Jan. 2. In every shipment, new prod ucts come from new manufacturers, he said. “Some of the manufacturers didn’t react quite as fast as we would’ve See MERCHANDISE on 3 Hanging around ^ . ■!' 1 » iHUijJ WULiiiiMliBgjyBmLtimnu.LUIMjmi , m mil j III l.i>"i ■ I'lwww '■ i 'll in mi .. ... Jll llBUUlUiyMMHJliBIIHWl UUW!!1^ Damon Laa/DN Chuck Hoyman, a Journeyman lineman with the LL Meyers Company of Marshalltown, Iowa, secures a power line atop a pole near 7th and Y streets Monclay afternoon. Hoyman of Dos Moines said the company was replacing old wire. Chambers again talks of paying athletes By Matthaw Waits_ Senior Reporter In the middle of congratulating the Nebraska Comhuskers, the Leg islature was serenaded by Ernie Chambers’ best Ray Charles impres sion. LEGISLATURE “Your love gives me such a thrill,” the state senator from Omaha said, “But your love won’t pay my bills. I need money.” The Comhusker football team’s national championship garnered them another honor, a resolution congratu lating them for their performance. But Chambers added an amend ment, which passed, recognizing that the football program makes a great deal of money and that the players risk Serious injury. He also added a few words about pay-fOr-play. “Without (the players), none pf this would have happened,” said Chambers, a supporter of paying col lege football players. hi 1991, Chambers drafted and pushed through a bill that would have allowed players to be paid if a major ity of Big Eight Conference states allowed their players to be paid. The bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Kay Orr. Later this week, Chambers said, he will introduce a bill that would go further than his first attempt at pay- _ ing athletes. “This bill is going to play hardball,” he said, decliningto elabo rate. Chambers charged that, through NCAA rules prohibiting pay, univer sities exploited players. “The standard of the legislature should not parallel... that exploitive and confederate standard of the NCAA,” he said. Chambers said more than 500 people went to the bowl game on money made by the players. But, he said, many of those people would speak out against paying players. Yet Chambers insisted that play ers needed to be compensated for their work. “The money these players make subsidizes all other sports over there (at UNL) other than men’s basketball,” Chambers said. “I emphasize that big time college football is a pursuit of expectations, of serious injuries, some of which are life threatening.” GRE testing to resume; dispute continues Kaplan finds flaws, discovers cheating with computer tests By Paula Lavlgra __^ Senior Reporter Kaplan Educational Centers will resume computerized testing of the Graduate Record Exams, though a dispute with the test’s manu facturer has not been settled. The dispute arose when Kaplan, a nation wide test preparation service, discovered flaws in the computerized GRE offered by Educa tional Testing Services and ETS suspended testing. Melissa Mack, a spokeswoman for Kaplan, said the company discovered that students were able to cheat on the tests because they offered a small question pool and easy-to remember questions. “If you and your roommate go to the same school, and you're in the same academic range, / you’ll see about 50 percent of the same ques tions as your roommate,” she said. “We brought that finding and questioned ETS and said, ‘You have a problem on your hands.’” Twenty-five percent of the more than 1.5 million people who take die GRE each year take die computerized version, which will be required by 1996. According to a press release from ETS, the computerized tests are better than the pencil and-paper tests because they offer immediate scoring, flexible scheduling and a better test ing environment. In the computerized version, test takers are first given easy questions. As they answer correctly, the questions become more diffi cult. “Everyone presumably gets a tailor-made test,” Mack said. “ETS thought they were able to justify using the same questions because not everyone got die same test. They were relying on the honor system.” But Kaplan’s 20 investigators took the test and were able to remember and duplicate the See TEST on 3 -
