SPPRT8 j frftl -
Buffalo Bash “Sparks” doesn’t fly February 5, 1997
No. 15 Colorado brings a 4-0 Big 12 Conference “Meet Wally Sparks,” Rodney Dangerfield’s lat- -
road record to the Bob Devaney Sports Center est comic venture, misses its mark and becomes The Sin Aim Rises ... REMIT
tonight. The NU women visit Boulder. PAGE 10 a comedy that isn’t funny. PAGE 12 Cloudy, high 35. Cloudier tonight, low 20.
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VOL. 96 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901
President's speech
By Terence Hunt
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bill
Clinton declared that Americans wanted part
nership, not partisanship in his State of the Union
address Tuesday night. He challenged Congress
to give the nation’s schools a big spending in
crease while balancing the budget by 2002.
Repeating ideas from his campaign, Clinton
said education was the top priority of his sec
ond term.
He said Americans should have the best edu
cation in the world. He challenged communities
Francis Allen continues
to fight for his sport after
28 years.
By Mitch Sherman
Senior Reporter
Tucked away in a hidden comer of the
Bob Devaney Sports Center, Francis Allen
sits behind his 40-year-old, chalk-covered,
wooden desk.
Coffee brews morning and night, and the
door to Allen’s 12-by-15-foot office never
closes. He offers visitors a chair, sometimes
a cookie, and nobody leaves without an ear
ful. '
Since 1969, Allen, a 54-year-old bach
elor whose life revolves around gymnastics,
has directed the University of Nebraska
to measure their stu
dents against national
standards to lift achieve
ment in math and sci
ence.
In a 60-minute speech, his tone was both con
ciliatory and challenging. He called for racial and
political harmony but also pressured Congress
for action. He was interrupted by applause 69
times.
The president’s proposals would increase
education spending by 20 percent, to $51 bil
lion for fiscal 1998. The increase, including the
cost of tax breaks for college, would be 40 per
cent by 2002.
gress to complete the
unfinished business of our country” — balanc
ing the budget, enacting campaign finance re
form and reopening last year’s welfare law to
restore benefits to legal immigrants.
Clinton said balancing the budget by 2002
would require only the votes of Congress and
his signature, but conceded the process would
not be easy. He said he believed Americans gave
him a second term to make tough decisions about
the future.
Two weeks after his
second inauguration,
the president told the
Republican-led Con
The Republican-driven proposal for a con
stitutional amendment for a balanced budget was
unnecessary and unwise, he said.
“We don’t need a constitutional amendment.
We need action,” he said.
For the moment, Republicans and Democrats
alike are stressing bipartisanship and coopera
tion, although neither side pretends there won’t
be legislative fights.
Still, there was none of the bitterness and
distrust from a year ago. Budget battles forced
two government shutdowns that outraged
Americans and tarred the GOP.
Please see UNION on 7
causes dosings
at WIC clinics
By Brin Gibson
Senior Reporter
Funding shortfalls could force about 10,000
Nebraska mothers and children to wait for gov
ernment aid and force aid-providing clinics to
close, said Nebraska health officials.
Clinics on the University of Nebraska-Lin
coln City and East campuses closed Jan. 1, they
said.
Peggy Trouba, state director of the Nebraska
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children, said a shortage
of federal funding and rising food costs mean
some of the program’s new clients will be placed
on a waiting list to receive aid.
Some Nebraska clients began, waiting Feb.
1, she said.
The WIC program provides low-income
women and young children with vouchers for
nutritious food items including milk, infant for
mula, eggs, cheese, cereal and fruit juice.
Marcia Wallen, director of WIC at Lincoln
Family Service, said clinics were forced to make
Please see WIC on 6
Talks about
cross burning
bring peace
By Erin Schulte
Senior Reporter
Twenty years ago, a cross burning at a fra
ternity may have elicited a response of violence
and protests.
But on Tuesday night, members of the
Afrikan Peoples’ Union met in the basement of
the Culture Center, 333 N. 14th St., with uni
versity administrators, members of Sigma Chi
fraternity and the NAACP, among others, to sim
ply talk about the fraternity ritual that included
burning a cross.
Please see MEETING on 6
_ .. Matt Miller/DN
FRANCIS ALIEN, right, and Jim Howard served as co-captains on Nebraska’s 1965 gymnastics team. Since 1979, they have
coached the Husker men to eight national titles.
NU coach creates tradition
men’s team from his hidden headquarters.
Nebraska’s invisible champion fights daily for
his troubled sport, cementing his spot as a
legend in Lincoln and an icon to the world
of gymnastics.
Allen’s teams have won eight national
championships. His athletes have gained 35
individual national titles and 13 spots in the
Olympic Games. Yet he is forced to perse
vere, surviving in a room built as an after
thought Mid nearly impossible to find with
out directions. •
Nestled in the northwest comer of the
Devaney Center, east of the track, north of
the swimming pool and adjacent to a rarely
used storage closet, Allen’s archaic office sits
next to the Husker training room. Old me
chanical gadgets and leather hand grips un
touched since the mid-1970s fill Allen’s of
fice.
“I’m into repairing crap,” says Allen, who
crafts hand grips from scratch and has sup
plied them free of charge to hundreds of
gymnasts, including American legends Mary
Lou Retton and Shannon Miller. “I can fix
anything that has to do with gymnastics.”
He certainly fixed the Nebraska program,
buildinggjt into a powerhouse that won five
consecutive national titles in the ’70s and
’80s. Today, he fixes routines. He repairs
rotten vaults and unbalanced pommel horse
performances.
And from his small office, he can look
outthe doorway and watch his gymnasts five
days each week from October through April.
Nebraska’s dean of coaches works every day
because he loves to teach.
NU’s Athletic Department loves Allen,
too.
“Francis Allen is one of my favorite
Please see ALLEN on 8
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