Sports
Surles wants to redshirt, wait for his year
By Derek Samson
Senior Reporter
Nebraska forward Chester Surles wasn’t
comfortable with his role last season. And he
doesn’t expect his role to
change much next year witn
the Comhuskers returning
everyone except Melvin
Brooks.
That is why the 6-foot-7
freshman from Saginaw,
Mich., wants to redshirt
next year.
If Surles does sit out the
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“If I redshirt, I will have three years all to
myself, rather than just two years,” Surles said.
“It’s mostly because Jaron (Boone) and Erick
(Strickland) are this team’s primary scorers,
and I know they will be next year, too. I’m a
scorer, too, and I know I could be the primary
scorer for three years.
“If I don’t redshirt, I’d be a junior when it
would be my year. But if I redshirt, I’d be a
sophomore when it’s my year. It gives me an
extra year to practice, and then I’ll be playing
full-time for three years.”
Surles said he didn’t redshirt this year be
cause he wanted to get a taste of Big Eight
basketball.
“I’m glad I played this year and didn’t
redshirt,” he said. “I thought I would play
more, but it was still good for me to get some
game experience. Now, if I redshirt, when I
come back from that redshirt season, I will
already have had experience, and I’ll be ready.”
Surles said he planned to talk to Coach
Danny Nee sometime this week and hoped to
make his decision in the next two months.
“It’s going to be my decision,” Surles said.
“But it’s something I have to seriously con
sider. If I do, I’ll spend my whole season next
year practicing. I think I can improve a lot. I’ll
work on things that my high school coach
emphasized, like my ball handling and shoot
ing.”
As a four-year starter for Coach Norwaine
Reed at Buena Vista High School, he led his
team to a No. 12 ranking in the USA Today
high school poll by averaging 21 points, eight
rebounds and six assists a game as a senior.
But things went much differently for Surles
as a freshman at Nebraska as he averaged only
2.9 points and 1.5 rebounds a game, while
averaging a little less than 10 minutes of
playing time a game.
“I know I didn’t play as well as I’m capable
of playing,” he said. “It was a disappointing
year for the team too, but I know I didn’t play
well personally. We had high expectations as
Travis Heying/DN
Nebraska third baseman Jed Dalton gets picked off by Kansas first baseman Alex King in the first inning of the Huskers’
6-5 win over Kansas at Buck Beltzer Stadium Tuesday night. Dalton scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth
inning when Alvie Shepherd walked with the bases loaded.
a team, and I had high expectations for myself,
and they weren’t met.”
Surles said his lack of playing time contrib
uted to his poor performance.
“I felt comfortable, but I didn’t feel like I
could play freely,” he said. “If Coach Nee
would see a mistake, he’d take me out. That
makes you kind of frigid and tight when you’re
on the court because you’re trying not to make
a mistake. That’s why I didn’t take many shots
because if you missed your first one, you might
be out.”
Surles said sitting out next season may help
him gain back something that he seemed to
lose last season — confidence.
“The more you play, the more confidence
you have,” he said. “If I redshirt, I know I’ll be
ready to have three very strong years. But even
if I decide not to redshirt, I will average in
double figures next season. I just think it might
be better for me if I redshirted.”
Baseball team
refused to be
burned by KU
By Mitch Sherman
Senior Reporter
A sixth-inning fire in the dugout of the
Nebraska baseball team couldn’t provide the
spark.
A near-perfect relief performance from
pitcher Gus Castro wasn’t quite enough.
It took patience, and it took discipline,
Coach John Sanders said, for the Comhuskers
to pull out a come-ffom-behind 6-5 win over
Kansas Tuesday night at Buck Beltzer Sta
dium.
Playing in front of 322 fans with tempera
tures hovering in the upper 30s, Nebraska
scored two runs in the seventh inning and one
in the ninth to improve to 17-11 and 6-5 in the
Big Eight.
Kansas fell to 10-21 and 2-8 in the confer
ence.
“It was a tough evening to play baseball,”
said Sanders. “Both teams competed hard con
sidering the conditions. This was the classic
case where discipline paid out.”
With Matt Meyer at the plate in the bottom
of the sixth, the Nebraska dugout scattered on
to the field because of a blaze in the Husker
dugout. One of Nebraska’s heaters, Sanders
said, caught fire, causing the Husker panic.
But the Nebraska bats did not catch fire.
The Huskers scored a run in the sixth inning
and two in the seventh to tie the game at five.
To open the ninth inning, Husker third
See HUSKERS on 9
Major-league strike damagedpast, future of college ball
Baseball is a mess.
And that mess could have long
ranging implications.
The fans have had to go 232
days without Major League
Baseball. The players have had to
go 232 days without playing, and
the teams will certainly not be
ready for a 144-game season after
only three weeks of spring training
and two weeks of exhibition games.
A 144-game season — instead
of the regular 162-game season —
will forever put an asterisk by the
1995 season, just as an asterisk will
forever remain with the 1994
season, which ended almost two
months early.
And those two asterisks will be
hurting the major-league players of
the future.
The future of Major League
Baseball — those playing colle
giate baseball now — is being
damaged by the MLB itself.
Major League Baseball has
reduced its funding to the NCAA
for summer baseball leagues. But
that makes no difference to
baseball fans.
The fans are still flocking to the
nearest stadium to purchase tickets
for major-league baseball games,
which will begin April 26.
Teams all across the board have
been selling tickets like wildfire.
The Baltimore Orioles sold more
than 25,000 tickets on Monday.
People lined up outside Fenway
Park in Boston.
At least one team, however, has
the fans in mind. The Minnesota
Twins are offering tickets for their
opening series against Baltimore at
half price.
In the end, though, it could be
the fans who get hurt the most.
Check that — it could be
college baseball players who get
hurt the most.
Not only is Major League
Baseball a mess after the eight
month strike, but collegiate
baseball now will get the mess
dumped on it.
Sure, college baseball was the
only ticket in town until the players
ended the strike.
Tim Pearson
But college players eventually
will be hurt by the strike — even
though it’s now over.
Most baseball players use
college as a kind of breeding
ground for the majors — essen
tially a minor league that uses
aluminum bats.
And a lot of college players
depend on not only the spring
baseball season but also on what
they do in the summer.
Summer baseball leagues have
helped college players hone their
skills. But more importantly, they
offer a chance for the players to
show off their skills to the many
major-league scouts in attendance.
But now maybe Major League
Baseball is sending collegiate
baseball players a message — a
message that the players don’t want
to hear.
The NCAA was given $500,050
| for summer leagues by Major
League Baseball in 1994. This
year, funding has gone down 65
percent to $175,000. Funding is
being reduced significantly because
of circumstances associated with
the strike.
Summer leagues such as Cape
Cod, Central Illinois, Great Lakes,
Northwestern, San Diego and
Valley will be hurt by the cuts.
And that means that players like
Nebraska’s Darin Erstad may not
get as much preparation during the
summer as he needs and wants.
Erstad passed up an invitation to
the U.S. National Baseball Trials in
Millington, Tenn., to play in the
Cape Cod League last summer.
And at Cape Cod, all Erstad did
was hit .340 to win the MVP award
— despite leaving early to report to
fall football practice.
Last summer, Erstad proved that
he was deserving of being men
tioned as a top-five pick in the
major-league draft by opening
some eyes.
But because of the major-league
players’ strike, other talented
players won’t have as good of an
opportunity to improve their
chances of being a high draft pick.
They won’t get a chance to
realize their dreams of a major
league career.
But most of all, Major League
Baseball hasn’t been able to realize
that the future of professional
baseball is somewhat dependent on
collegiate baseball.
And that would just make Major
League Baseball into a much
bigger mess.
Not only was the present
destroyed by the strike, but the
future was damaged as well.
Pearson b a Junior news-editorial major
and the Dally Nebraskan sports editor.
