Webb City’s
best connects
on, off field
Comhusker fans love it when
their beloved Blackshirts,
Nebraska’s favorite bad guys, get
down and dirty.
That’s why we love ‘em ... be
cause they’re the best bad guys
around. The badder they are, the
better we like ‘em.
Come Saturday, they are the
good guys.
Grant Wistrom is considered
one of the nation’s baddest defen
sive players.
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bad guy. Wistrom’s a rabble-rouser.
He plays with passion. He’s capable
of landing a tackle at any time that
could change or charge his team’s
momentum.
Wistrom finds his reasons for
playing football both on and off the
“ field. As many quarterbacks know,
Wistrom connects with people.
Wistrom impacts people the
way he impacts football games.
On the Husker Online web site,
Kyle Allen, a seventh-grader from
Webb City, Mo., said:
“Grant Wistrom is my best
friend, and I love to watch him play
for the great Comhuskers.”
In a place such as Webb City,
Wistrom’s hometown, a player’s
fans have the opportunity to know
him off the field, to rate him as a
person as well as a player.
“He’s a great athlete,” said Jesse
Wall, Wistrom’s high school posi
tion coach, “but also a fine young
man. I learned as much from him
as he probably learned from me.”
Wistrom said helping people
and seeing “how much it means to
them gives you a good feeling of
why you play the game.”
“He has a lot of compassion for
people,” Wall said. “If you asked
him to do anything in the world,
he’d do it.”
Wistrom is expected to be
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in the 1998 NFL draft. He said he
enjoys playing football, but he also
plays each week because it’s “a way
to pay for school.”
While he can create a stir that
rouses Memorial Stadium, off the
field, Wistrom said, he’s a “pretty
laid-back guy.”
He’s a guy who wishes every
course was biology. Wistrom posts
a 3.4 grade-point average in pre
pharmacy. His eyes sparkle when
he talks about microbiology.
“If I could just take biology
classes,” he said, “I think college
would be all right.”
After college and possibly the
NFL, Wistrom will be remembered
as the good ol’ bad guy; but he plans
to carry on in his good-guy way as
a pharmacist.
“I’d like to work as a clinical
pharmacist,’’he said, “work one on
one with the patients, rather than
just passing out pills.”
Johnson is a graduate student
in journalism and the Daily Ne
braskan wire editor.
Matt Miller/DN
NEBRASKA’S CAPTAIN, Fiona Nepo, is to credit for much of Nil’s success this year, Coach Tferry
Pettit says.
Nepo sets her own pace
NU’s setter handles
the pressure of
following legends.
By Shannon Heffelfinger
Staff Reporter
Fiona Nepo was well aware of
the pressure placed on her shoul
ders before the Nebraska volleyball
team began its season in August.
The 5-foot-9 sophomore from
Honolulu knew she had to face the
pressure of trying to follow an im
pressive legacy of Husker setters,
which includes Cathy Noth, Trish
Delaney, Lori Endicott, Val Novak,
Nikki Strieker and, most recently,
Christy Johnson, who guided the
Comhusker volleyball team to its
first-ever national championship.
But Nepo, the 1996 Comhusker
captain, accepted the challenge any
way.
“Of course I felt the pressure,”
Nepo said. “But I tried to put it out
of my mind because I knew it
wouldn’t help me. Thinking about
it would have just affected me in a
bad way.”
Nepo’s constant improvement,
Coach Terry Pettit said, has dictated
the Husker fortunes this season.
Nepo agreed that her play is a fac
tor in the team’s success.
In 16-2 Nebraska’s two biggest
conference matches of the season
last weekend, she was at her best
Nepo — who averages 13.4 set as
sists per game — recorded 59 as
sists and six block assists against
then-No. 8 Texas.
Against Texas A&M, previously
ranked No. 10, she contributed 55
assists, six kills on .455 hitting and
a team-high 18 digs.
“I need to be at my best when I
set so that the other players on our
team can reach their potential,”
Nepo said.
Pettit said he has been pleased
with Nepo’s progress.
“She gets to go out and make
mistakes without everybody sec
Please see NEPO on 10
Mason
wants
victoiy
The KU coach has
been routed four times
in Lincoln.
By Trevor Parks
- Senior Reporter
Kansas Football Coach Glen Ma
son has been on the sidelines of Me
morial Stadium four times, and all four
times he has left
the victim of a
rout.
But no matter
how unsuccessful
Mason has been in
Lincoln, he con
siders the stadium
one of the shrines
in all of college
football.
“I think it is
college football at
its finest,” Mason said during his press
conference earlier this week. “There
is no doubt that there is a commitment
at the the University of Nebraska and
the state of Nebraska to the sport of
football.” .. ,t .,
In his three visits to Lincoln as the
KU coach, Mason left a 51 -14 loser in
1989,49-7 in 1992 and 45-17 in 1994.
As an assistant to then-Iowa State
Coach Earle Bruce in 1975, Mason
watched as NU beat the Cyclones 52
0.
Mason, who is 0-8 against Ne
braska, gets a chance to avoid remain
ing winless when the Jayhawks travel
to Lincoln Saturday night. It is the first
night game at Memorial Stadium since
Kansas lost 49-7 in 1992.
Kansas averages 378.2 yards per
game — with 189 yards rushing and
189 yards passing. But a balanced at
Please see MASON on 10
^anks rally
from six down
to win again
ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta
Braves took a big gamble Wednesday
night, and the New York Yankees
turned it into one of the biggest come
backs in World Series history.
Pinch-hitter Wade Boggs drew a
bases-loaded walk with two outs in the
10th inning following a questionable
intentional walk, and the Yankees beat
Atlanta 8-6 to even the Series at two
games each.
A three-run homer by Jim Leyritz
in the eighth inning tied the game as
the Yankees rallied from a 6-0 deficit.
With two outs in the 10th, Tim
Raines drew a walk from Steve Avery
and moved to second on a single by
Derek Jeter. When Atlanta Manager
Bobby Cox went to the mound and
elected to intentionally walk Bemie
Williams, rookie Andy Fox was on
deck.
Cox clearly knew that Boggs was
still left on the bench. Boggs took three
straight balls for a walk that put New
York ahead to stay.