Sports
Page 14Thursday, October 14,1999
Samuel McKewon
No. 3 I-back
learns ropes
Diedrick finds
some patience
For new players, college football is not a
wake-up call. It’s a series of them.
When the spring of 1999 rolled around,
Nebraska I-back Dahrran Diedrick got an
unwelcome jolt. There were whispers that
Diedrick, partly because of his 6-foot, 215
pound frame, might be moving to fullback.
And Diedrick didn’t like what he was hearing.
“I didn’t come this far to play fullback,”
he said. “I’ve come too far.”
Diedrick was talking about his geograph
ical trek from Scarborough, Ontario, to
Lincoln. But he’s come just as far, if not far
ther, in terms of maturity and in his under
standing of what big-time college football is
all about - waking up.
1 remember the Dahrran Diedrick of
January 1998. That player never would have
believed the coaches bringing up a possible
move to fullback. That Diedrick couldn’t have
fathomed such a thing.
Oh yes, I remember that Nebraska I-back
at the Cook Pavilion, the place where he told
a small gaggle of reporters he would contend
for the starting job that next fall, how he’d
challenge Ahman Green at I-back (this was
before Green’s NFL jump), much less Correll
Buckhalter, DeAngelo Evans and Dan
Alexander.
He was cocky. Foolish. And unquestion
ably wrong.
“When I first came, I didn’t think it was
going to be near as hard as it was,” said
Diedrick, now NU’s solid No. 3 I-back.
You can’t blame him. Most of them don’t
have any idea. Like Alexander said, “Every
freshman goes through their own trial of fire
at Nebraska.” For Alexander, it was the oppo
site, a feeling of being overwhelmed after that
first varsity practice, a feeling that brought
him close to tears.
For Diedrick, it was the problem of being
a big carp and not knowing he was now sur
rounded by equally big, if not bigger, carp on
all sides. Like Diedrick, all these guys looked
good on film. All of them were men among
boys in high school. All of them were given
the red-carpet treatment in the recruiting
process. So all them were a little like Diedrick
wnen mey got on campus.
And once spring practice rolled around
three months later, Diedrick’s teammates
knew how to knock off what Alexander
termed “the chip on Dahrran’s shoulder.”
After all, they, too, once had a chip.
“He wasn’t shunned or anything,”
Alexander said. “We really liked him, but the
offense all just kind of shook our head and
laughed. ‘He’ll have to leam,’ we said.”
And the defense?
“Oh boy, the linebackers all wanted to kill
him because he was talking about breakin’
*them off and what he was going to do to
them,” Alexander said. “He built up some
lickings from the defense.”
Diedrick got the picture fast. But his
biggest hurdle at Nebraska was learning the
Please see DIEDRICK on 15
« . .t • - V-'V *
, • *•
Mike Warren/DN
MANDY MONSON, a NU senior outside hitter, digs a ball against Oklahoma at the NU Coliseum. Nebraska swept the Sooners in three games.
Nebraska sweeps Oklahoma
in 2nd-best offensive match
By John Gaskins
Staff writer
Nebraska Volleyball Coach Terry
Pettit took virtually no time to revel in his
team’s dominating victory over Oklahoma
on Wednesday night.
The first thing Pettit said after the
match when asked about NU’s third con
MikeWarren/DN
MANDY MONSON, a NU senior outside hitter, digs
a ball against Oklahoma at the NU Coliseum.
Nebraska swept the Sooners in three games.
secutive victory was “Wow, I’m already
starting to think about Baylor,” alluding to
the 12^-ranked Comhuskers’upcoming
road match against an upstart Bears team
Saturday.
For what it was worth, NU (13-4 and 5
2 in the Big 12 Conference) did put togeth
er its second-best offensive explosion of
Volleyball fyv /\
Nebraska 15 1|, \ T5- \
the season while coasting to a 15-4, 15-7,
15-6, beating of the hapless Sooners (6-11
and 1-6).
But Pettit didn’t expect anything less
from a team trying to get back on its feet
after stumbling in past Big 12 upset losses
to much tougher opponents in Kansas
State and Texas A&M. At times, it seemed
as if OU’s defense was afraid of the ball.
“Everything is in relationship to the
competition,” Pettit said. “If you look sta
tistically, other teams have attacked well
against Oklahoma, too. So, some of those
balls that went down wouldn’t have
(against tougher opponents). But I do
think we’re getting better.”
The Big Red defense held the Big 12’s
second best offense to a .143 hitting per
centage, while the NU offense hit .400 or
better for the second time in three games
and saw four players crush five or more
kills and hit over .480.
The match quickly became a kill fren
zy for Nebraska’s starting rotation.
All-American Nancy Meendering led
the way with 15 kills, while freshman
Greichaly Cepero slammed nine, hitting
.615.
Meanwhile, NU’s left-side hitters took
advantage of the boomer-less Sooners to
relieve the pains of a recent slump. Senior
Mandy Monson and junior Angie Oxley -
who had hitting percentages of .178 and
.185, respectively, coming into the match -
hit .333 and .500.
It was especially soothing for Monson,
who had suffered unspecified physical
problems the past several days, Pettit said.
“She’s a thoroughbred,” Pettit said.
“She’s so intense, she really has difficulty
knowing when to relax. She’s engaged all
the time. And when you have an athlete
like that, you really have to back them off
a little bit.
“If you look back at last season,
Mandy’s biggest matches were after she
had not been on the court for a couple
matches because she’s fresh and she’s just
dominant physically.”
If Monson had a tough time relaxing
against OU, the same couldn’t be said
about Nebraska’s freshmen.
In a night where nearly every Husker
made mincemeat out of OU, the four
freshmen continued to show signs of vet
eran-like play. All four of them not only
played but made big plays. Two of them -
Cepero and Amber Holmquist - started.
«
It s sad because that s
probably the last time
III get to coach against
Terry (Pettit) here.”
Miles Pabst
OU head coach
And, for a stretch in the third game,
Pettit put three freshman in the front court.
They responded by reeling off five straight
points.
“It was really tun because we were so
relaxed out there,” said Holmquist, who
nailed five kills and hit .500 in her fourth
straight start.
“Greichaly kind of loosened us up. It
was a nice feeling to know that all three of
us were out there. Everybody was just hav
ing a really good time.”
A story within itself occurred after the
match when OU Coach Miles Pabst,
before commenting on his team’s poor
play, opened his post-match statements
hinting at Pettit’s possible retirement after
the season.
“It’s sad, because that’s probably the
last time I’ll get to coach against Terry
here,” said Pabst, who is good friends with
Pettit and has managed a 6-51 in his 22
seasons of playing NU.
Pettit, who has several times fended off
questions about quitting before and
throughout the season, would not com
ment on the subject.