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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1997)
spouts_i Mm* e_ THURSDAY New additions Lil’ Oscar April 3,1997 Defensive tackle Glen Matthews and comerback ' * While not as prestigious as the real Academy Joe Walker have taken different paths to play for jfl&jjBKr Awards, the 24th Student Academy Awards are DREARY Drizzle the NU football team this spring. PAGE 9 important for young filmmakers. PAGE 12 Cloudy, high 55. Dark and stormy N’ VOL. 96 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF SINCE 1901 . 130* Phillips out of j \ From Staff and Wire Reports St Louis Rams nmning back Lawrence Phillips was a free man Wednesday after serving 23 days in jail for the assault of a former girlfriend. Phillips was released from the Lancaster \ County Corrections Air Park Facility at 6 p.m. | to his NFL coach, Dick Vermeil. I Vermeil, on the eve of starting his first coach ing job in 14 years, flew to Lincoln to retrieve Phillips from jail. The Rams reserved two seats i on a TWA flight for the return to St. Louis. r “1 had a nice conversation with him and he’s excited about getting out, of course,” Vermeil said in St. Louis. “We go from there.” Phillips served 23 days of a 30-day sentence for violating the probation he was serving for an assault charge. He was released for good behavior. The former Huskier star pleaded no contest to assaulting a former girlfriend in another football player’s apartment complex in 1995. That probation was revoked by a judge after he was picked up for drunken driving inLos Angeles in June 19%. ■v That arrest was just months after the Rams made him the sixth pick of the draft. Phillips’ sentencing on the violation of pro bation last month came one day after he pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct in Omaha. Po lice there say Phillips was verbally abusive to ward officers who responded to a loud-party complaint at the Red Lion Inn. The same day Phillips was sentenced and taken tojail, two women at the party served him with civil lawsuits for improper sexual conduct Phillips ’ attor ney, Hal Anderson, called die civil cases “silly Phillips is scheduled to appear in Douglas County court cm the disorderly conduct charge in May. “My attitude about it (is), he’s paid his dues,” Vermeil said. “We write that off as a mistake by an immature person.” But the Rams vow to watch him more closely than ever. Hence, the personal treatment. ‘We also realize there’s a tendency for any one person that makes mistakes to make them again,” Vermeil said. “Our whole program will be designed to help him make sure he doesn’t do it again. I have a lot of confidence in him.” lips had off-season knee suigery and did therapy while serving his jail term. Vermeil isn’t sure how much Phillips will be able to do in the Rams’ spring mini-camp, which begins today. m, I t: • £ . . a ; ■* a 4 . 1 i . . ■ > • » • .. . s , i. k , 7 . . i : i d *»C» a Editor’s note: This week the Daily Nebraskan is focusing on die stories of those who grieved over the death of a loved one. ByErin Gibson Senior Reporter For most people, death seems a small, unglorious event. An illness — often a combina tion of long life and disease — claims the body quietly to the dis may of family and friends. No television cameras or griev ing masses usually rally behind the coffin. No memorial posters or quilts of bright colors commemo rate the passing. A church gets rented for a fu 11— He thought I could never be in his shoes. And then I was... and didn’t like it.” Sue Tierney neral, maybe a wake, and then ev eryone tries to snap back into rou tine. And with little outside support, a grieving family must say, ‘‘Goodbye.” For the Tierney family, goodbye was a long* drawn-out sigh that fol lowed two grandfathers’ battles with cancer. * ----- . When each death finally ar rived, it did not surprise them. Doctors had told the fates of both men before. Family members had time to : accept death, and greeted it alongside their grandfathers, staying with both men until their Please see CANCER on 3 v By Matthew Waite Senior Reporter On the last day of his presidency, former ASUN President Eric Marintzer also was in cpurt facing drunken-driv ing charges from an incident in No vember that he said was a mistake. “It was one of those situations where it was prob ably a bad judg ment call,” the 22 year-old said Wednesday. ‘People make mis takes. This by no means justifies this. I am not trying to justify this.” But his attorney, Shelley Stall, said in an evidence suppression hearing that police actions on the night he was ar rested should instead be the bad judg ment call in question. Marintzer, who was elected presi dent of the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska in spring 1996, was pulled over Nov. 24,1996, when Lincoln police officers saw his 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass make a turn without using a turn signal and swerve over the center line. He was ticketed for first-offense driving while intoxicated and crossing the center line. Officers had been watching Marintzer’s car that night because of a hit-and-run accident investigation. Ear lier in the night, another person driv ing Marintzer’s car hit a truck parked in the alley between O and P streets, from Centennial Mall to 14th Street. Officer Lance Worley testified Wednesday that he had been watching Marintzer’s car from an unmarked po lice vehicle. When Marintzer came out of Duffy’s Tavern, 1412 O St., Worley said he watched as Marintzer struggled to get in his car. Worley said under cross-examina tion that just because someone has been in a bar does not mean he is drunk, but the trouble getting to his car did indi cate to him that Marintzer may be in toxicated. Marintzer did get into his car, and left — Worley followed. Later, after Marintzer committed the two traffic violations, a marked police cruiser as sisted Worley and pulled Marintzer over near 18th and R streets. Stall tried to suppress evidence Wednesday of Marintzer’s field sobri ety test administered to him — which he failed— and his subsequent arrest. Stall told Lancaster County Court Please see MARINTZER on 6 Inauguration reveals Ruwe’s inspiration Bt Kasey Kerber Staff Reporter The inauguration ceremony for the 1997-1998 ASUN officers included quite a few surprises, but none so re vealing as the story told by new ASUN President Curt Ruwe. Shortly into Ruwe’s inauguration speech, he Jjpld of a basketball game he played as a loud-mouthed young ster who was obsessed with birds, maps, a hidden treasure and talking ■■n about them — often. He said as long as people had ears, he would talk. After that baseball game, his fa ther addressed his rambling son. “Curt, watching you on the court tonight made me wonder... How pould anybody like you?” Ruwe said. AndRuwe, 35 senators, two execu tive officers and an audience of sup Please see INDUCTION on 8 -;-• ' ' ■ ■ ' W,--"-. > .■ . - ' r Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http: / / www.unl.edu /DailyNeb