insidefT
1 uesday
Sports
Nee hopes Huskers can
continue NIT streak, page .\
11
Arts & Entertainment
Broadway comes to Omaha,
page 13
March 14, 1995
Clinton greets Huskers
National champs
meet president
By Jeff Zeleny
Editor
WASHINGTON — The highest-rank
ing college football fan in the United States
was dwarfed by the country’s No. 1 team at
a White House ceremony Monday.
President Bill Clinton congratulated the
Nebraska Comhuskers on their national
championship and said the team was strong
not only in character, but in size.
“This is the only football team in America
that could make me look like/a ballerina
here,” said Clinton, with about 90 Nebraska
players flanked behind him on the South
Lawn of the White House.
The president spent about 30 minutes
Monday afternoon in Washington with NU
players, coaching staff and the Nebraska
Congressional delegation.
Clinton was escorted to the South Lawn
by Nebraska coach Tom Osborne and cap
tains Rob Zatechka, Terry Connealy and
Zach Wiegert.
Monday’s meeting with Clinton was the
first time an entire Nebraska football team
has met with a U.S. president.
In 1970, when the Huskers won their first
national championship, team captains and
coaches traveled to Washington. The fol
lowing year when Nebraska was named No.
1, Nixon personally congratulated the team
in a Lincoln ceremony at the Nebraska
Coliseum, said NU associate athletic direc
tor Don Bryant.
The presidential meeting was scheduled
to begin at 11:30 a.m. EST, but Clinton
arrived about 30 minutes late. While the
players waited, they fidgeted and took off
their suit jackets in the 70-degree sunshine.
Clinton appeared on the South Lawn a
few minutes after noon. He laughed, smiled
and waved to the small crowd of coaches,
wives and dignitaries while walking to the
podium.
The president said he had been a college
football fan for years.
“I have been since I was a small boy a
very ardent football fan,” Clinton said.
The president lauded Osborne for his 22
years of success at Nebraska. When the
president telephoned Osborne after
Nebraska’s 24-17 Orange Bowl win over
JeffHaHer/DN
President Bill Clinton jokes with Nebraska football players on their way to a ceremony on the White House South Lawn
Monday afternoon.
Miami, Clinton told the coach no one de
served the victory more.
“I know that coach Osborne’s record
alone justifies a national championship,”
Clinton said of Osborne’s 219 career wins.
“Folks would like to have that here.”
Osborne, in his trademark passive style,
thanked the president and Nebraska con
gressmen for playing host to the event and
offered a word of advice to the 40 members
of the national and Nebraska media who
were present.
“I hope a lot of pictures are taken today.
They will never look better,” Osborne said
of his players who traded their red jerseys
for slacks, ties and jackets.
The Nebraska captains presented Clinton
with a glass-enclosed autographed football
and personalized red jerseys numbered 95
and 96, for the remaining years of Clinton’s
- first term in office.
“Even though you are from Arkansas,
we know you are a Husker fan at heart,” said
Connealy, a defensive tackle from Hyannis.
Clinton praised Ed Stewart, Wiegert and
Brenden Stai for their first-team All
America awards, as well as Matt Shaw,
Zatechka and Connealy for being named
academic All-Americans.
Zatechka (whose name the president mis
pronounced) has never had a B in a class,
Clinton said.
“We could get him a job here at the
White House,” the president said.
See CLINTON on 10
Nebraska gave its ‘best shot,’
Gov. Nelson says, but in the end ...
Micron chooses Utah
By Paula Lavigne
Senior Reporter “ "
Top-quality engineering education drew
Micron Technology Inc. to locate its new $ 1.3
billion complex near Levi, Utah, instead of
Omaha or Oklahoma City, Micron officials
announced Monday.
Julie Nash, Micron spokeswoman, said the
engineering programs at the University of Utah
and Brigham Young University would give
Micron long-term resources for computer soft
ware production.
The universities, located near Levi in Utah
County, were major factors in Micron’s deci
sion, she said. Nash did not say if Nebraska
was the second choice.
The University of Utah is in the nation’s top
60 engineering schools, she said. Both univer
sities have fabrication programs suited to
Micron’s needs, she said, and are willing to
offer on-site education and training.
Nash also cited Salt Lake City’s and Utah
Valley’s highly educated labor pool, Utah’s
pro-business environment, community infra
structure and easily-accessible site as factors
in Micron’s decision.
Tax incentives, she said, were much further
down on the list.
“We’re looking more at long-term type
factors,” she said, “and incentives only offer
short-term benefits.
“This site has to remain competitive for
years and years to come.”
Each site appealed to Micron, she said, but
a combination of factors put Utah on top.
“There wasn’t anyone that was lacking any
thing. It was a very tight race, and Utah County
happened to meet our needs the best,” she said.
William Splinter, dean of the engineering
college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
said he thought available space played more of
a role in Micron’s decision than the college.
But BYU and the University of Utah offer
See DECISION on 6
Engineering still in backseat
with university, Legislature
By Matthew Waite
Senior Reporter ~
Sen. Chris Abboud of Omaha didn’t plan to
present an engineering bill to a legislative
committee the same day Micron Technology
Inc. of Idaho said it was going elsewhere.
But the timing was perfect, he said.
Testifying before the Ne
braska Legislature’s Edu
cation Committee, Abboud
said Monday he was baffled
by the NU Board of Re
gents’ December decision
to not establish an inde
pendent engineering col
lege in Omaha.
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Omaha-area senators
signed on to a bill that would establish and
provide money for an engineering college in
Omaha.
One problem, however, is that the original
draft of the bill violated the Nebraska Consti
tution, according to an Attorney General’s
opinion.
To fix it, the committee would have to
amend the bill to add the Coordinating Com
mission for Post Secondary Education into the
approval process, the opinion said.
But Abboud pressed on, saying the bill was
started long before Micron. He said the debate
started in the summer of 1993, when the idea
of an independent college was first passed
around.
Abboud said he was confused by the mes
sages sent by different reports about engineer
ing education and the 5-3 vote by the regents
to deny a separate college.
“It’s a little puzzling to me,” he said, adding
that he understood that “politics is what it is.”
Abboud said he understood that building a
new structure in Omaha was expensive, but the
university and the state should take advantage
of the donations that the businesses pledged.
NU President Dennis Smith said he was
See LEGISLATURE on 3
