Sports
By Derek Samson
Senior Reporter
When Nebraska returned to the
playing field Monday for the first time
since Jan. 1, its weakest spot was an
unexpected one.
Nebraska practiced without three
I-backs during the first day of spring
practice in Cook Pavilion.
Lawrence Phillips and Damon
Benning sat out of Monday’s work
outs with pulled hamstrings, while
Brian Knuckles missed practice be
cause of car trouble while returning
from spring break.
Coach Tom Osborne said Phillips
and Benning would likely miss the
remainder of this week and possibly
even longer.
“We were handicapped at some
positions today, especially I-back,
where we practiced without three of
our top four,” Osborne said. “We’re a
little thin at some other spots also.
Overall though, we’re not too bad.”
Osborne said for the first day of
spring practice, the players who did
practice were ready for spring ball.
“I thought for the first day of spring
ball, it went pretty well,” Osborne
said. “There was good retention on the
part of the older players. They really
didn’t make very many mistakes.”
Nebraska practiced in helmets and
shoulder pads because of a new rule,
Osborne said.
Previously, the first five days of
spring practice had to be in sweat
clothes, but the rule change now al
lows helmets and shoulder pads to be
worn.
Osborne said the rule change would
help certain positions greatly during
the spring. ?.
“That means you can get a lot more
done with your linemen and lineback
ers,” Osborne said. “A day in sweat
clothes is almost a wasted day of prac
tice for linemen. We’ll probably get
more done now in the spring on the
non-conditioning days.”
Osborne said the attitude of the
1995 Comhuskers would emerge in
the spring.
“Attitude is always critical, and
every team has a little different chem
istry and leadership,” he said. “Teams
tend to draw together and move for
ward or pull apart and move back
wards. So we’re anxious to see how
they respond, and we hope they main
tain their edge.
“Sometimes when you’ve had a
real good season there is a tendency to
decide you’ve got it made. It makes
you a bigger target. You have to be a
better football team sometimes to come
up with a real good season and have
another great season.”
New commissioner faces
concerns, expectations
By Derek Samson
Senior Reporter
When Southwest Conference com
missioner Steve Hatchell was an
nounced Sunday to be the first Big 12
commissioner, Nebraska football
coach Tom Osborne had some ques
tions.
Osborne voiced
the concerns of
many of the Big
Eight coaches Mon
day after practice
and said he hoped
people remem
bered it was the Big
Eight that was ex
panding, and not the
„ . . „ boutnwest Lonter
Hatched ence
“The thing that I’m concerned about
and a lot of the Big Eight coaches are
concerned about is that when the
Southwest schoolsjoined us,” Osborne
said, “it was the Big Eight they were
joining and they would play by the Big
Eight rules.
“All ofthe sudden, you begin to see
people wanting things the way they
were in the Southwest Conference.”
Osborne said he was mostly fearful
of the schools falling from the Big
Eight’s rule.
“I don’t understand that because
they joined us with that in mind—that
they would play by our rules,” he said.
“I hope that is the way it is. We took
them in. We weren’t part of a crum
bling conference. They came in with
the understanding that they’d play by
Big Eight rules.”
But Hatchell said he didn’t foresee
any big conflict between the Big Eight
and SWC schools.
At his press conference Monday,
Hatchell did his best to alleviate any
fears the Big Eight schools might have.
See HATCHELL on 8
Scott Bruhn/DN
Nebraska fullback Vershan Jackson looks to make a block for wingback Sean Wieting during the
first day of spring practice Monday in Cook Pavilion. The Huskers practiced without three of their
top four l-backs.
--— --
A little bit of rotten luck gives
gymnast pot of gold in Mizzou
By Mitch Sherman
Senior Reporter —
COLUMBIA, Mo. — For
Martha Jenkins, the Big Eight
Championships last weekend were
the perfect ending to a not-so-per
fect regular season.
jenKins, a d
foot senior gym
nast from
Kingwood,Tex.,
captured the all
around crown
Saturday to pro
pel Nebraska to
its second
straight confer
enue iiue anu a
Jenkins school-record
score of 194.45.
Saturday’s meet and the Husk
*
ers’ home victory over Minnesota
last week — in which she won the
all-around with a personal best score
of 39.10—were the good parts of
Jenkins’ 1995 season. The rest of
the year, she said, did not produce
many fond memories.
Chi Jan. 3 0, while competing in a
dual meet against Missouri, Jenkins
fell from the uneven bars during
warm-ups, hyperextending her el
bow. For the next month, she sat on
the sidelines and watched. At one
point, she said she thought her sea
son would come to a premature
end.
“There was talk that I might not
be back at all,” Jenkins said. “We
thought I might have to redshirt. I
would have had to had surgery on
it, so that scared me a lot.”
But after consulting with doc
tors, she decided to try to come
back. It was a risky move, Jenkins
said, because had she competed in
one more meet and re-injured her
elbow, the possibility of a medical
redshirt year would have been elimi
nated.
“I definitely didn’t want to end
my career by coming back and com
peting once more and getting hurt
again,” she said.
For most of March, Jenkins par
ticipated sparingly and sported a
brace that immobilized her arm
during competition.
“TTiere were three or four weeks
that I didn’t do anything,” she said.
“But even when all I could do was
just go to meets and pull a board for
my teammates, that was a reward.”
See JENKINS on 8 »
Baseball house of pain to law weenie, as is hockey
i mngs are anrereni now.
It was only 15 years ago when I
saw life through eyes of wonder
ment. The world was a panorama of
opportunity, and I gauged my
existence solely on what I was
regarded as and never upon who I
was.
I saw things through degrees of
acclaim and self-fulfilling grandeur.
Now I see things through degrees of
pain and avenues for its minimiza
tion.
I saw my future with only
uhyielding expectation. Now I’ve
yielded. My life now is marked with
guarded hope that those things
essential to my existence will either
always be there or arrive with time
and patience.
And 15 years ago, I lived to be
like Pete Rose, Keith Hernandez,
Steve Garvey and George Brett.
These men—some of the best
Eofessional baseball players in the
te 1970s and early 1980s if you
did not recognize the names—were
more than heroes to me.
They were me.
I didn’t want to be like them — I
wanted to be them. I wanted to be
able to hit the ball as far as Jim
Rice, to field like Hernandez, to
throw like Goose Gossage.
Now, of course, the logical flaw
of my pre-pubescent fantasies was
that I considered all of these
baseball greats as baseball players.
That was all.
They weren’t men; they were a
sub-species of men who somehow,
on their 18th birthday , metamor
phosed from normal guys into
baseball greats.
I guess I am bringing all of this
up to reflect upon my own feelings
about the baseball strike.
Like all baseball fans, I feel
betrayed and angry that die two
sides cannot and/or will not resolve
this squabbling and play baseball.
But then 1 realize that these
people are just men. They are
subject to the same obstinance, the
same passions, the same anger and
the same greed we are all subject to.
Beau Finley
The fact that they hit or throw a
white ball really hard doesn’t make
them any better arbitrators, negotia
tors, or, quite frankly, human
beings.
I don’t condone the baseball
strike. I think it’s about pettiness
and greed. But sometimes I’m petty
and greedy, too.
Perhaps I’m being too easy.
Perhaps we should expect more
from those in the public eye.
But the bottom line is that if you
take away the youth and the ability,
the players are just people.
Maybe that’s why I’m most
disappointed.
Omaha Lancers Update: Now,
vast readership, I know I haven’t
covered hockey before, and that’s
exclusively because I wouldn’t have
the first friggin’ clue about what I
was talking about.
Yeah, as if that has stopped me
before.
Anyway, I decided to take in my
first-ever hockey game over spring
break so I could strip away this veil
of sporting ignorance. Plus, beer is
served.
Thus, myself and a friend — I
would call her a “date,” but she said
that would be an incredibly expan
sive interpretation of the term.
Actually, she said I could call her
about anything I wanted as long as I
bought her beer at the game—took
off to see the USHL playoff game
between the Omaha Lancers and the
Rochester... um, Sissies. I can’t
remember their damn nickname.
The game was never close.
The Lancers scored four goals in
the first period and cruised to an
easy 9-0 victory.
It was also an extraordinarily
physical game — for me.
Every time I would ask my date
what’s going on, she would look at
me real sincerely and say, “You
wanna see?”
Of course I wanted to know, so I
said, “Urn, yeah.”
She then screamed “Hip check!”
and then threw her entire body
against me, knocking me into the
aisle and into the cotton-candy
vendor. I would then have to buy
some candy from the vendor freak
so he wouldn’t beat me up. I still
have 121 bags of that pink crap.
I knew I shouldn’t have dated
someone who could bench press
more than me or, moreover, who
could actually bench press me.
Anyway, my date ditched me
after the first period to “sit with her
mother.” Yeah, like I haven’t heard
that excuse 16, wait, no, 17 times
throughout my life. How stupid does
See FINLEY on 8