Sports Weekend
Friday, April 5,1996 Page 9
KUN awarded Lincoln’s NSN rights
By Mitch Sherman
Senior Editor
Four weeks to the day after having
its nightly sports talk show unexpect
edly ripped away by KFAB, Lincoln
radio station KLIN got the last laugh
Thursday.
Paul Aaron, president of Pinnacle
Sports Productions—recently formed
by Great Plains Media Inc. — an
nounced that KLIN (1400-AM) would
remain Lincoln’s affiliate to the newly
revamped Nebraska Sports Network.
Terms of the five-year contract were
not disclosed.
KLIN will handle the majority of
the production responsibilities for the
network, which was awarded to
Aaron’s group in February after it bid
$8.5 million for the exclusive rights to
broadcast Comhusker football, vol
leyball, men’s and women’s basket
ball and baseball.
‘‘Our partner in Lincoln will be a
very important part of the upcoming
plans,” Aaron said.
On March 7, KFAB removed the
KLIN-originated “SportsDay Mid
America” from the network. The
nightly talk show had been produced
by KLIN for the network since 1993.
On Monday, Pinnacle Sports Pro
ductions awarded the Omaha rights to
KKAR (1290-AM) and KDGE (101.9
FM). KFAB has held exclusive rights
to the Nebraska Sports Network since
1983 and has carried Husker football
since 1926.
“With KFAB gone,” said Jim Rose,
KLIN’s operations manager, “it’s a
great day for us because we don’t have
to compete with their signal in our
market. Now we have a chance to truly
be Lincoln’s Nebraska sports station.”
Aaron said his company chose
KLIN over two other Lincoln bids.
KLIN was picked because of its con
tributions to the network over the past
three years, he said.
In addition to handling the produc
tion of“SportsDay Mid-America”and
“Husker Huddle,” KLIN has originated
broadcasts of Husker volleyball,
women’s basketball and baseball.
“They arc an enthusiastic crew with
a ton of talent and a real commitment
to the network,” Aaron said.
Norton Warner, owner of Warner
Enterprises, which operates KLIN and
its FM sister stations, said he was
excited to be a part of the new network.
Aaron said KKAR and KLIN would
jointly run the nightly talk show, which
will begin when the network is offi
cially handed over to Pinnacle Sports
Productions in August.
Football and men’s basketball
games will also be broadcast on Warner
Enterprises’ newly purchased fre
quency, 98.1 FM. The 100,000-watt
station, called “The Big Stick” by
Warner, originates from a 1,000-foot
tower near Milford. Warner said “The
Big Stick’s” signal would be the most
powerful in Lincoln, stretching from
Omaha to Grand Island and from Nor
folk south into Kansas.
Negotiations will begin soon with
Kent Pavelka, KFAB’s 22nd-year an
nouncer. Aaron said he wanted Pavelka
as his play-by-play man.
“We’re going to see what he has to
say and what his goals are,” Aaron
said. “We would like to have him, but
Kent has a career he has to consider. I
have no idea whether he wants to do
this or not.”
The network’s remaining affiliates,
Aaron said, will be announced soon.
He said he plans to include 30 stations
in Nebraska and several outside of the
state. The network currently is made
up of 50 stations, including 28 in Ne
braska.
Matt Miller/DN
Nebraska senior Stacie Stafford pitches Wednesday during the Huskers’ 9-710-inning win over Iowa State. Nebraska, 23-11 and
1-0 in the Big 12, will play Kansas in a three-game series Saturday and Sunday at the NU Softball Complex.
Iowa
center
commits
By Trevor Parks
Senior Reporter
The Nebraska basketball
team has begun to build toward
the 1997-98 season by receiving
a verbal commitment Thursday
from one of Iowa’s top players.
Brant Harriman, a 6-foot-11,
244-pound junior center from
Mason City, Iowa, said he would
sign a letter of intent in Novem
ber to play basketball for the
Comhuskers.
Mason City coach Bob
Horner said Harriman was
pleased with the Nebraska pro
See HARRIMAN on 11
NU hopes to keep Big 12 lead
By Trevor Parks
Senior Reporter
Nebraska softball coach Rhonda
Revelle cannot control the weather,
but she wants to see a favorable fore
Revelle
cast lor piaying
softball this week
end.
The Cornhusk
ers, 23-11 overall
and 1-0 in the Big
12, play host to
Kansas, 21-11 and
3-1, at the NU Soft
ball Complex. The
Huskers and
Jayhawks are
scheduled to play a doublehcader be
ginning at 1 p.m. Saturday and one
game Sunday at noon.
Saturday’s weather calls for tem
peratures to be in the mid 30s to lower
40s, not great weather to play softball.
Revelle said if the weather prevented
Saturday’s games, a doublcheader
would be played Sunday, when the
temperature should reach the upper
40s.
“The weather is something we are
really concerned about,” Revelle said.
“We just don’t think playing in a wind
chill of 13 degrees is good enough to
have a quality game.”
The Huskers have missed four Big
12 conference games because of bad
weather. Last weekend’s three-game
homestand with Missouri was snowed
out and the second game of a double
header against Iowa Slate on Wednes
day was called off because of the cold.
Nebraska did manage to squeeze
out a 9-7 win over the Cyclones in the
first game when Ali Viola crushed a
two-run home run in the bottom of the
10th inning. The Huskers led 7-0 be
fore Iowa State tied it in the top of the
seventh.
The win pleased Revelle.
“We’ve won one game, and we are
on top of the Big 12,” Revelle said.
“Wc had to win it that way because that
made a statement that said,' Take that.’”
Kansas enters the Nebraska game
coming off a doubleheader split over
Creighton. On Wednesday afternoon
in Lawrence, Kan., the Jayhawks lost
the first game 4-3, but won the second
6-0.
Kansas swept a doubleheader
against Missouri on April 2, and won
one of two games against Texas A&M
for its three Big 12 wins. *
Revelle said the series this week
end was very important. Last season,
the Jayhawks and Huskers split their
four-game season series. Nebraska won
the two games played in Lincoln, but
lost the other two, both by one run in
Lawrence. In the two games at the NU
Softball Complex, the Husk-ers
outscored Kansas 17-3.
“We may have made too big of
rivalry out of it,” Revelle said. “Last
year we wanted to beat them too badly,
and we had trouble staying focused.”
_
Beau Finley
NU proves
that winning
is everything
Redemption.
It’s been an ongoing theme in
Western Culture from its inception
and continues to pervade the con
sciousness of our religions, our jus
tice system and even our entertain
ment industry.
And now it applies to
Comhumper basketball.
As most know, the Homhonkers
won the National Invitation Tour
nament last week followingan emo
tionally drainingdisappointment of
a 16-14 regular season.
The season witnessed a host of
turbulent events that I have neither
the desire nor the writing space to
enumerate. Suffice it to say, you
could not walk into a room and
throw an $8,000 check or an Alge
rian recruit without hitting some
one who thought Danny N ec should
be gone.
But the HuekFinnsters beat five
mediocre teams, and all that
changed.
Now Danny is the coachcst with
the mostest.
And I tell you, vast readership,
I’m as tickled as a two-handed bird
under a bridge in spilt milk about it.
You see, I was able to view the
redemption firsthand.
Myself and two of my pals, Andy
Paycheck and MC IccTheis (his
rapper handle), went to New York
to see the game, and see the game
we did.
To say we loved it would be an
understatement.
I, in fact, do not remember being
that excited since I heard that
Michael Bolton had laryngitis.
Despite my excitement of watch
ing a Husker victory, however, I
felt pangs of ambivalence.
What’s so great about being the
best of the rest, the champ of the
chumps, the leader of the wieners,
the Bill Byrnes of basketball teams?
But as I watched St. Joseph’s
shoot 11 percent from the field, I
realized it didn’t matter how it
looked. It only matters that you
win.
This revelation harkened me
back to my youth. I remembered
that thrill of victory I experienced
when I was but a boy.
I recalled that time I beat that
one-legged, blind girl in an obstacle
course race. I reminisced about the
time I defeated that illiterate, mute
boy in a spelling bee. Yes — win
ning is good.
And so it was here.
It doesn’t matter what they won.
It only matters that somebody else
lost.
Following the victory, as the
three of us exited the arena, Andy
Paycheck put things into perspec
tive by reminding me of just how
lucky we were to have a coach like
Danny Nee. As he pointed out, any
used car lot in the city would love to
have him.
It’s amazing the clarity that
comes with redemption,not tomen
tion the blind luck.
Flaky Is a third-year law stadeat
and a Dally Nebraskaa sports coiamalst
