XXT John
Walker
By Darren Ivy
Senior staff writer
In just six years, Nebraska Women’s Soccer
Coach John Walker has taken Nebraska from a
club sport and turned it into a top-four program.
A lifelong soccer enthusiast, Walker came to
Nebraska in 1994 from Canada, where he was the
director of high performance for Ontario soccer.
When Walker and Athletic Director Bill
Byrne met to set goals far the first-year program,
Walker gave himself five years to turn the
Comhuskers into a consistent top-25 team.
It took just three. NU finished the 1996 season
ranked in the top 10 and has been there the past
two years as well.
“I don’t think anyone could have predicted it,”
said Walker, who has a 92-22-2 record in six sea
sons at NU.
“It is very difficult to do that. Don’t get me
wrong, I am not giving myself a pat on the back. It
is tough to envision five years ago that we would
be ranked No. 2 by one of the polls this past week.”
The success story hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Walker was named the 1996 NSCAA/Umbro
national coach of the year following a 23-1 sea
son. These accomplishments have made Walker
No. 9 on the Daily Nebraskan Sports Century list.
This past summer, national powerhouse Notre
Dame courted Walker to take its vacant coaching
spot, but after briefly thinking about it, Walker
declined. He was rewarded for his loyalty with a
large pay raise.
He still has unfinished business at NU and had
invested too much of his life to leave. Walker
wants to win a national championship.
Assistant Coach Megan Bechtold admires
Walker’s commitment to the team and program.
“He hates even missing practices with the
team,” Bechtold said. “He tried to have it sched
uled so his wife, Mary, would have her child at a
time so he could make practice. We told him it was
all right to miss, and die players understood him
not being there.”
Walker hates missing practices because that is
where NU makes the most improvement. The
Huskers go intense day in and day out - something
a lot of other teams talk about but don’t do, Walker
said.
The improvement of the team is evidenced in
the increased attendance at home games. An aver
age of 257 people watched NU’s first season at
Whittier Field.
Since then, a new complex was built, and
attendance has grown to nearly 1,000 a match.
Walker can take pride knowing he played a part in
that growth of soccer.
Cal 10
Bentz
By Joshua Camenzind
Staff writer
Cal Bentz’s career as the Nebraska
swimming coach cannot be measured
in wins, losses or even conference
championships.
People will look back on Bentz’s
career and admire the effect he has had
on the sport that he loves. Ever since
Bentz was a youngster in Hastings, he
knew that he wanted to be involved in
the sport. This love and dedication to
the sport have garnered him the No. 10
spot on the Daily Nebraskan Sports
Century list
Bentz came to NU out of high
school to swim, not knowing what he
was going to study. He picked teaching
as a career and helped coach a club
team between his sophomore and junior
year.
from then on, Bentz knew what he
wanted to do with his life. In 1978, Bob
Devaney and Don Bryant drove to
Omaha, where Bentz was coaching at
Omaha Westside, and asked him to be
the coach at NU.
For 24 years, he has been helping
his athletes succeed in both their com
petitive and professional lives while
compiling 16 conference titles for the
men and five for the women.
“The best part of coaching has been
watching the success of the athletes,”
Bentz said. “I have been fortunate to
deal with talented and intelligent peo
ple.”
Bentz has coached 19 Olympians
and two world record holders - Penny
Heyns and Peter Williams. He has been
the conference coach of the year six
times while never finishing lower than
fourth in the conference standings.
With his tenure at NU, Bentz has
seen a lot of things develop in and
around the sport of swimming.
“The sport of swimming has
changed,” Bentz said. “The women are
swimming as fast as the men did when I
first arrived here.”
Bentz said that his job is getting
tougher as the years go by, and the sport
is “a completely different ball game.”
He is quick to point out that events of
today cannot be put into the context of
the past because of change.
“The place is the same, but the time
is different,” Bentz said. “It’s not the
same. Monetary things mean a lot now.”
But Bentz is quick to defend what is
called the “purity” of the sport.
“It is different now because some
athletes in high school swim for college
scholarships,” Bentz said. “But all in
all, athletes have a real desire to excel
and do things for an inner satisfaction.”
Devaney ‘turned the program around’
DEVANEY from page 20
“having the president of th&United
States come to town” - said Devaney
had a knack for inspiring his players
to achieve.
“In die time and place I grew up,
the head coach was the kind of guy
you revered and respected,” Kinney
said. “You always sought Bob’s
approval. He knew the right words to
say at the right time.”
Devaney inspired not only 101
victories, eight Big Eight champi
onships and two national champi
onships, he inspired a state full of
football fans starved for a winner.
Few could comprehend in the
winter of 1962 - when the Michigan
native stepped off the train in Lincoln
from Wyoming to inherit a program
that had suffered 17 losing seasons in
21 years - that he would become
what former NU Sports Information
Director Don Bryant called “one of
the three most important people in
the University of Nebraska’s history.”
Thanks to Devaney, Nebraska
has a powerhouse football program
that boasts 37 consecutive winning
seasons, five national championships
and 230 consecutive Memorial
Stadium sellouts.
Thanks to Devaney, who served
as NU’s innovative Athletic Director
from 1967-93, NU has one of the
most highly-funded, best-facilitated,
most-respected and successful stu
dent-athlete programs in the nation.
And thanks to Devaney,
Nebraska became known for more
than just a state of open plains and
fields of com. That “Sea of Red,” of
77,000 screaming faithful fans on
Saturdays in the fall? The pride of
nearly 2 million Nebraskans chewing
peoples’ ears off about “their” foot
ball team? It all started with Devaney.
“Bob was probably the most
important coach ever at Nebraska,”
said No. 1 Nebraska Coach and
Devaney’s successor, Tom Osborne.
“He turned the program around
and brought it to new heights. His
influence was greater than anything I
was able to contribute.”
Devaney’s impact was immedi
ate.
Before he arrived, NU had
trudged through several seasons of
conservative, downright boring - not
to mention losing - football. So in his
first game as NU’s coach, at home,
Devaney called a pass on the first
play. The pass fell incomplete.
“And the whole stadium went
nuts,” Bryant said. “He knew what
the fans wanted and got them on his
side right away.”
NU won nine games in his first
season and a conference champi
onship in his second. The next three
years, Devaney contended for the
national title but fell short. However,
by 1967 and ’68, fans were calling
for his head after two poor 6-4 sea
sons.
The bulldog fought back.
Devaney captured the elusive nation
al title in 1970 and repeated the feat
in ’71 - beating his old nemesis, leg
endary Alabama Coach Paul “Bear”
Bryant in the Orange Bowl, to estab
lish himself as a legend.
But it was Devaney’s personality,
not his accomplishments, that his for
mer players, coaches and peers will
remember him by.
“He was a man of a million
jokes,” current NU head coach and
former fullback Frank Solich said.
“You felt comfortable around him.
As a player, he demanded that you
play well, but he was light-hearted in
a lot of ways. He made the game fun.”
One Devaney story that personi
fied his legacy occurred in a game
against Southern California in
Lincoln.
In the first half, the road team
Trojans had been flagged for a few
more penalties than USC Coach John
McKay believed they deserved. At
halftime, as McKay bitterly stomped
toward the locker room and muttered
to himself, he felt a hand slap him on
the shoulder. It was Devaney’s.
McKay turned around and
looked at the grinning, red-faced
Irishman.
“Well, John,” Devaney said
ra her sheepishly. “How did you like
my brother’s officiating?”
‘Consistency and discipline’ helped make Osborne a legend
OSBORNE from page 20
knew all the facts. We tried to act in
accordance with the facts. I felt the only
way to get him to stay on track and keep
him going to classes was to give him the
hope that he could play football again.
“Otherwise, I felt he would run back
to his friends in Los Angeles and get in
trouble again. It ended up that he did that
when he left.”
Solich said Osborne’s trust in play
ers was meaningful and something he
adopted when he took over in 1998.
“Coach always understood that
there were usually two sides to a story,
and he realized that you can’t jump to
emotional decisions,” Solich said. “I
have tried to use that same approach.”
But even using Osborne’s approach,
Solich has drawn criticism in his first
two seasons. He’s learned what it is like
to replace a legend much like Osborne
did when he replaced Bob Devaney.
Replacing a legend
As hard as the ’90s were on
Osborne, he almost didn’t make it
through^the first five years of his career.
Despite going 48-13-2, he was criti
cized because he tied for Only one con
ference title and didn’t win any national
championships, Bryant said. He also
had five losses to rival Oklahoma.
“You look at his 25 years, and Tom
wasn’t the big hero the first five years,”
Bryant said. “He struggled in his early
years. He was winning nine games, but
that wasn’t good enough. Bob had won
national championships.”
Bryant recalled a humorous exam
ple of die kind of pressure Osborne was
under in his first year. It was a Thursday
afternoon practice, and the players were
doing warm-ups. The quarterbacks
were throwing balls to the receivers, and
somebody said to Osborne: “You used
to be a great receiver in the NFL. Show
us how it is done.”
“Tom decided to be a good sport, so
he went out for this pass from Steve
Runty,” Bryant said. “He went up for the
catch and someone popped him, and he
dropped the ball. Dave Humm said jok
ingly to him: ‘Coach Devaney would
have hung on to that one.’”
Osborne finally beat the Sooners in
1978 but lost to Missouri the next week
35-31, forcing a rematch with OU in the
Orange Bowl. NU lost that game 31-24.
The Orange Bowl would be the set
ting for many of Osborne’s early
heartaches and fittingly some of his best
moments later in his coaching career.
Going to Miami
Eleven times Osborne’s teams
ended their seasons in Miami with the
Orange Bowl, and only four times did
he come out victorious. Three of those
wins came in the ’90s.
One of the toughest losses was a 31
30 setback to Miami in the 1983 Orange
Bowl when NU was ranked No. 1.
Going into the fourth quarter his
team was trailing 31-17. By the end the
lead was cut to 31-30.
Rather than kick the extra point, set
tle for a tie and guarantee a national
championship, Osborne opted to go for
a two-point decision. It failed, and
Miami captured the crown.
“Any time you lose one, you feel
badly for those players,” Solich said. “It
was hard on everybody. That was pretty
well thought out ahead of time. He had
made the decision that he would go for
the win.”
Said Miami Coach Howard
Schnellenberger: “This was a champi
onship game, and (Osborne) went after
it like a champion.”
In 1993, Osborne would come close
again only to lose 18-16 to Florida State
in Miami. Afterward, some wondered if
Osborne would ever win a national
championship. He would be asked
about it until he finally captured his first
one in 1994 with a 24-17 come-from
behind victory over Miami.
He would go on to win another title
in 1995 and go out with a share of one in
1997. Osborne went out on top. But
would it have been the same if he hadn’t
ever won one?
Bryant wasn’t sure.
“People didn’t worship him until the
last five years, ’ he said. “When he start
ed winning national titles and went on
that great string of 60 wins and three
losses, he just became an icon.”
To Osborne, the national titles were
a bonus and not mandatory for success.
“I think I would have been satisfied
even if I never won it,” Osborne said.
“The most gratifying thing was that
people wouldn’t keep asking me about
it. The national title was much more of a
focal point to fans and the media than
me. Championship rings and trophies
weren’t why I was involved in coach
ing.”
Outsmarting opposing coaches and
the love of the game were what drove
Osborne.
Adapting to change
Osborne had an innovative football
mind. He developed and crafted the
option attack, transforming it into a
lethal weapon by the early 1980s.
“He did a super job of maintaining
an excellent program and then taking it
to a new level in the last four or five
years,” Bryant said. .
Solich didn’t work with Osborne the
first few years, but he saw him change to
meet new challenges that arose.
“Tom grew in the job,” Solich said.
“In some respects he mellowed and
became more comfortable after he beat
Oklahoma and started winning Big
Eight Championships. He was able to
adjust. He was very flexible in that man
ner. When change was necessary, he
would make it. He had a set of principles
he always followed.”
One thing that never changed was
Osborne’s relentless work ethic.
Working to be the best
For seven months out of the year,
Osborne would work 15 hours a day,
seven days a week. Since retiring,
Osborne has scaled back to 10 hours a
day doing work as a teacher, founder of
the Teammates Program and advertis
ing spokesperson for several compa
nies. He still runs and lifts weights.
It doesn’t surprise Bryant that
Osborne is still going strong.
“The thing that amazed me was his
consistency and his discipline,” Bryant
said. “It showed in his football and his
preparation. It showed in his daily life
and his workouts, which he would never
miss. Tom is probably, without question,
the hardest working guy I’ve known.
“He gave his heart and soul to that
football program and probably to the
detriment of other areas at times. He
would work from sunrise until well into
the night day after day after day to get
that football team ready. I admired that”
Looking back, Osborne is not sure
how admirable his 15-hour days were to
his children.
“One tiling that gnaws at me today is
how much time I spent away from my
family,” Osborne said. “At the time, I
thought I was being a good father, going
to their games when I had time, but I
realize now that I should have spent
more time with them.”
Spending more time with family
was one of the reasons Osborne decided
to retire in 1997.
Leaving on top
Osborne’s retirement announce
ment Dec. 10, 1997 came as a big sur
prise to everyone but Solich, who had
been told of the decision at the begin
ning of the year, but at that time, it sur
prised him. *4
“I can’t say I saw it coming,” Solich
said. “He hadn’t slowed down. His drive
and eneigy level on the outside were the
same.”
The fact that Osborne was in such
good shape made it even harder to walk
away, he said in a May 1998 interview
with the Daily Nebraskan.
“I’ve deliberately kept myself pretty
busy because I know it wouldn’t be a
good idea to all of a sudden start sitting
and staring at walls,” Osborne said. “A
little bit is filling the void, but sooner or
later, there is no question you will come
face-to-face that you aren’t coaching
anymore, and I think that will be an
adjustment and be difficult, but it’s
something that has to happen.”
It’s been more than a year since that
interview, and Osborne has grown more
at peace with life after football.
He still comes around Memorial
Stadium, lifts weights and runs on the
turf now christened with his name.
Deep down he misses the players,
the assistants and the chess match every
Saturday.
It’s been a part of his life too long to
let go.