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was revoked by a judge after he was picked up for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
