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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 1997)
EDITOR Paula Lavigne OPINION EDITOR Matthew Waite EDITORIAL BOARD Erin Gibson Joshua Gillin Jeff Randall Julie Sobczyk Ryan Soderlin [ Our VIEW Helping hands Snowstorm provides chance to aid others The early season snowstorm is leaving us with a jungle of fallen limbs, and all we can do now is offer a few helping hands. If your residence has electricity ... If your car is mobile... If your phone is operational... If you don’t have a tree in your living room .... If you can get out your front door... ... consider yourself fortunate. You also have another extra day out of classes. Instead of using that time to throw snowballs and watch reruns (if you’re lucky enough to have cable), lend a hand to those who are struggling to find a place to sleep, shower and eat. i ne siorm snocxeu mosi oi us, out imagine the shock of being in your warm, lit home one minute, and only a few hours later waking up to a cold room and getting only a clicking sound when you try to turn on the light. Imagine what it’s like to look out the window and see yodr car smashed by the oak tree that was standing straight and tall the night before. Imagine pick ing up your phone and hearing no dial tone. Those people are - maybe for the first time - at the mercy of others, so offer them a hand so they don’t have to beg. Helping out starts at the most basic level. There are several university students who have nowhere to go, and this includes the six greek houses without power. Open your doors to your friends, and friends of your friends. If you baye^a.shp^er, waprpt.up. 1/you have some leftover pizza, do the same. ' ' Offer to shovel sidewalks and pick up branches. (But be careful: Common sense tells you to avoid branches, or anything, tangled in power lines.) Help someone push his or her car out of the ditch. A 1__1 *_i.1. ^.1_ _-I. . 1 n i^auz.e; uiai uitic; cue inuuaaiiua ui people in Red Cross shelters who could use a hand. They also could use supplies and non perishable food. So, you don’t have an excuse, here they are: Wesleyan Knight Field House, 54th and Huntington streets. Christ’s Place Church, 1111 Old Cheney Road. Red Cross Headquarters, 220 Oak Creek Drive. Pershing Auditorium, 226 S. Centennial Mall. Yes, the people you help will probably be strangers, but what better way to make friends? There are less laborious ways to help the situation. Be patient. Whether or not you think the city and the university are doing their jobs fast enough, they’re doing their jobs. Give them time and stay out of their way. Remember they have to attend to the worst cases first, so your lifeblood link to HBO may have to wait. Everyone’s describing Lincoln as a war zone or die aftermath of a tornado. It doesn’t have to be a disaster. It can be an opportunity for people to show their capacity for compas sion and strength. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 1997 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoin, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for ihe editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major and/or group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588*0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. Haney’s VIEW Under pressure Fans' expectations drive Huskers to limit DAVE MORANTZ is a columnist for the University Daily Kansan in Lawrence, Kan. My faith in humanity was dam aged this weekend. An invasion of Winnebagos and red, white and black Starter jackets for ever changed my opinion of college athletics and opened my eyes to the insane, yet powerful desire to follow a football team across the nation. It began Friday night with the pre liminary wave of fans. Middle-aged Comhuskers, clad in Nebraska para phernalia, filed into a quiet downtown pub. They stood huddled in small groups, like their college-aged heroes on the field, clutching bottles of Bud Light Standing in the middle of people’s dart games, they laughed and yelled out predictions to the next day’s foot ball game, hoping to draw comments from local bar patrons. Like almost everyone else at the bar not wearing a big “N” on his or her forehead, I paid them little attention. But the next day they multiplied. Like a red tide at sea, they spread across Lawrence, tearing up gardens and yards as they beached their mam moth vehicles in search of spots to tail gate. “Whooo! I said, Whooo!” one fan yelled after stepping out of a red bus that he parked in front of my apartment building. Making sure everyone knew a Nebraska fan had arrived, he reached through the driver’s-side window and honked the horn. The first few notes of the Nebraska fight song rang through the neighborhood. “Whooo!” he screamed, arms raised to the sky. “Husker power, Husker power. Whooo!” 1 , « I wonder if the fan camped out in my front yard on Saturday realizes that his idols ... are merely college students: physically unmatched[ but emotionally inexperienced Sure, they have a lot to brag about. Their football team could challenge many professional teams. Their offensive linemen push opponents wherever they desire, giv ing the team an option play that NFL coaches would kill to have. And most impressively, they somehow find a way to attract the best high school football prospects to Lincoln, a town with about as much appeal as Waco, Texas. But Nebraska football, like many big-time college athletic programs, has a dark side, created by the expectations and pressures of the more titan 15,000 Nebraska fans that enveloped Lawrence this weekend. A friend of mine saw the most graphic sign of this dark side Saturday night at a downtown bar. “Do you want to know what col lege football is all about?” a former Nebraska player in his late 20s asked her. He rolled up his left sleeve to reveal a dark circle at the base of his forearm. A mark, the player said, of years of steroid abuse while competing for the Comhuskers. Now, like many other ex Comhuskers, he follows the team as they strive for another undefeated sea son and another national champi onship. He adds to a fan base that * cursed quarterback Scott Frost last year for the team’s loss to Arizona State, its first loss in two seasons. He physically suffered from the pressure to win, and now he con tributes to it Of all the fans that came to Lawrence this weekend, this one knows what it’s like to enter an oppo nents’ stadium and receive more fan support than the home team. He knows the joy of defeating a quality opponent He also knows the pain of losing. But does he remember the pressure that drove him to steroids? Each Saturday, a part of me wants Nebraska to lose. Not because of their players’ off-field problems, or because of die obnoxious fan who was so proud of his melodious horn. I just don’t like teams that never lose. Yet a loss could be devastating for the Nebraska players, many of whom are just out of high school. The criticism of crazed Comhusker fans rivals the cheap shots of New York sportswriters. I wonder if the fan camped out in my front yard on Saturday realizes that his idols, his motivation for trekking across the country through snow and rain, are merely college students: phys ically unmatched, but emotionally inexperienced. I would hope the inhumane pres sure to win will not drive a current Nebraska player to sit in a Lawrence bar in 10 years and display what col lege football is all about. P.5. Write Hack Send letters to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St., Lincoln,. NE 68588, or fax to (402) 472-1761, or e-mail <letters@unlinfo:unI.edu. Letters must be signed and include a phone number for verification ..
