Sports
John Gaskins
Kicker’s life
not a walk
in the park
Ah. yes, the life of a kicker.
Seems like such a ho-hum life to
have in football.
Seems as though all he has to do
is sip Gatorade and enjoy the view of
the cheerleaders on the sideline, not
having to withstand the complexity
of memorizing NASA rocket sci
ence-style plays or the brutality of
being some 300-lb. lineman named
Bubba’s tackling dummy in the
trenches for three grueling hours.
But sometimes what we arm
chair quarterbacks tend to forget is
that what is by far the most physical
ly painless position in football is by
far the most mentally painstaking,
behind the water boy, that is.
What’s so tough about being a
kicker? Oh, nothing, except having
the weight of your life, 43 team
mates’ lives and 65,000 fans’ lives on
your foot as the whole world watch
es, that’s all. Such a pressure com
pares valiantly with having to decide
at gunpoint on having sex with
Pamela .Anderson Lee or saving the
ozone.
Just ask Gary Anderson, who’s
got to be the sickest man alive nght
now. Poor Gary.
Instead of being the NFL’s all
time best kicker and the only kicker
in history to go through an entire sea
son perfect (he made all 35 field goal
attempts and all 59 extra point
attempts), his legacy may very well
be the choker who missed a normally
automatic 38-yarder. It would have
given the Vikings a 10-point lead
over the Falcons with two minutes
remaining in the NFC Championship
and virtually seal the Vikings’ first
trip to the Super Bowl in 22 years.
With one kick, he shattered the
dreams of millions.
Of course, bleeding hearts like
my Aunt Judy, whom I watched the
game with, will scream, “Don’t
blame the kicker. Blame any player
on that team who made one mistake
on one play the entire game!”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe there
were dozens of plays and players that
could have made the difference.
Maybe by some coincidence, her son
was a place kicker for his high school
team.
But just ask any kicker. Ask Scott
Norwood whose wide nght in Super
Bowl XXV would have given the
Bills their elusive NFL title. Ask
Byron Bennett, whose wide left in
the 1994 Orange Bowl would have
given Tom Osborne his first national
championship.
Ask NU redshirt Josh Brown,
who is the leading candidate to fill
Kns Brown’s shoes next fall.
“What it comes down to is the
kicker must split the upnghts, and the
pressure is all on him.” Brown said.
“If you make it, you're the hero.
If you miss, you’re the biggest loser
alive, and you have to live with that.”
Gaskins is a sophomore broad
casting major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
Sooner shocker: NU thumps OU
By Adam Klinker
Senior staff writer
NORMAN, Okla. - There were
11,607 fans at Lloyd Noble Center at
the beginning of the Nebraska men’s
basketball team’s game with No. 25
Oklahoma.
But by the end, with the score
board reading 96-81 in favor of the
Cornhuskers, there were fewer than
2,500 fans left. And they were quiet.
“The best feeling in the world is
leaving a silent gym,” NU senior for
ward Andy Markowski said.
Throughout the game, the Huskers
(11-7 overall and 3-2 in Big 12
Conference) never trailed and main
tained a 20-point lead in the first and
early second half.
Nebraska 96
Oklahoma 81
NU Coach Danny Nee credited his
bench with keeping up the pressure on
the Sooners and keeping up the high
level of intensity on both offensive and
defensive ends.
“The key in the first half was the
bench,” Nee said. “They made major
contributions.”
Among the reserves, guard Cary
Cochran hit double figures for the sec
ond straight game, leading the bench
with 12 points, while guard Chad
Johnson had 11 and forwards Louis
Truscott and Troy Piatkowski both
contributed 8.
In addition to hot hands on the
offensive end, the Huskers also
harangued OU (13-5,4-1) with a man
to-man defense, hoping to cut down on
the long balls, which the Sooners kept
up all night.
OU guard Eric Martin played evi
dence to that as he led all scorers with
eight 3-pointers and 27 points.
Yet for the rest of OU lineup,
things were relatively tranquil, as both
Tim Heskett and forward Ryan
Humphrey fouled out in the second
half, having only scored 6 points
between them.
“We played heads-up defense,”
Piatkowski said. “It was just some
thing different and it worked for us.”
But on either side of the ball, as is
fast becoming the norm, the big fac
tors were coming from down low.
Senior center Venson Hamilton got his
eighth double-double of the season
with 19 points and 11 rebounds.
“It doesn’t happen without the big
fella,’’ Nee said. “It starts with Venson,
the domineering presence he has
inside.’’
Against OU, Hamilton moved
from 20th to 15th on the all-time
Husker scoring charts, and is now just
75 rebounds short of the 1,000-point,
1,000-rebound club.
However, Hamilton’s numbers
were overshadowed by those of senior
forward Larry Florence, who scored
21 points, including a last-second. 3
point heave from the comer at the end
of the first half to give NU a 48-28 lead
at halftime. Florence also scored the
first 6 points to start the game - not
that he was counting.
Please see UPSET on 11
Matt Miller/DN
SENIOR COURTNEY BROWN may not be the flashiest gymnast on the squad, but she is one of the most reliable. She can also put up the high-score -
Brown earned a school-record tying-9.925 on the balance beam in the opening meet.
Gymnast brings solidarity to team
By John Gaskins
Staff writer
With Head Coach Dan Kendig watching
intensely, senior gymnast Courtney Brown
bounced on the trampoline nervously, apprehen
sive to try out a new, risky vault routine.
Minutes before, Kendig was raving about
Brown's confident presence on the gym floor and
how such strength makes her one of his best gym
nasts.
"She's overconfident, but she doesn't take it to
a lev el where she's cocky, but kind of to a funny
level.” Kendig said.
"When you know you can do something and
you have that kind of confidence in your ability to
do it, that's a huge feather in your cap ”
But there she was moments later, acting like
she had cold feet.
“Where's this confidence thing I was just talk
ing about?” Kendig jokingly shouts to the whole
gymnasium.
Such mockery comes along with being the Old
Reliable on one of the top gymnastic teams in the
country. It is simply not expected by anyone -
teammates, coaches, even judges - for Brown to
show any signs of fear or failure.
The words Brown’s teammates and coaches
most frequently use to describe her are consistency
and confidence. She is respected for her clean,
powerful, mistake-free routines.
Assistant Coach Rhonda Faehn-Tetreault, who
coaches Brown on the balance beam, said that
when Brown is on the beam, she just can’t miss.
“She very rarely has a bad day,” Faehn
Tetreault said. “When she goes to compete, I know
she 11 hit. 1 hat s a good //
feeling to have as a ••
coach."
Brown hit everything
last Friday, as she tied the
school record on the
beam with a career-best
9.9925, capturing the
event's title at the
Huskers" quadrangular at
Iowa State.
Faehn-Tetreault said it
isn't just Brown's scores
that separate her from
most gymnasts. It’s her willingness and desire to
compete, even when it means competing as the
anchor of the beam team, which carries with it the
pressure of performing last.
“Everyone else says, ‘Put me at the beginning,
1 don’t want time to think, I don't want time to get
nervous,’ and she doesn’t care. She said, ‘You can
put me wherever you want,’” Faehn-Tetreault said.
To understand Brown’s ability to pull through
when it matters most and the attitude that allows
her to do so, one must understand her background
and the traits that make her who she is.
“I think I have a lot of qualities that makes me a
leader, and I think that runs in my family,” Brown
said.
mow aeep is leader
ship and success rooted in
Brown's ancestry? It goes
back to the Fishers, Ind.,
native’s first ancestor to
ever come to America,
Miles Standish, who just
happened to be the cap
tain of the Mayflower
While Brown admits
she hasn’t done extensive
research on Standish, she
said her mother had, and
even led an organization
that honored him and all the pioneering pilgrims.
And indeed. Brown said her mother possesses
the qualities to lead and succeed as a school
teacher, the same occupation her grandmother took
and the same occupation she wants to go into after
Please see BROWN on 11
Working with
future generations
is what makes
me happiest
Courtney Brown
NU gymnast