EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) - Former
Nebraska running back DeAngelo
Evans will enroll next month at
Division II Emporia State and partici
pate m spring football drills.
Evans, who was a high school
standout at Wichita Collegiate, left
Nebraska in September after a foiling
^ out with Coach Frank SoRch. The 5^
foot-9, 215-pound back said he was
ready for a fiesh start
“I really liked Coach (Jerry) Kill
and the coaching staff-, and I think I
can help turn the program around,”
Evans told the Emporia Gazette in
Thursday’s editions. “It was a good fit
for me, because of what they wanted
to do on offense. The whole atmos
phere was great.”
Evans visited Emporia State on
Nov. 9 when the Hornets beat
Washburn 45-20. Emporia State fin
ished the season 4-5 overall and 3-5 in
the Mid-America Intercollegiate
Athletics Association.
Evans also considered Northern
Iowa and Southwest Missouri State.
Kill declined to comment on
Evans’ plans, citing NCAA regula
tions._
An I-back at Nebraska, Evans
rushed few: 994 yards on 186 carries in
14 games but was prone to injury. He
missed the 1997 season with a_gr$in.
* injury.
In 1998 Evans was sidelined for all
but three games with a tailbone injury
and turf toe. He also had arthroscopic
knee surgery after die season.
Evans said he was just starting to
get backinto shape.
“I just wanted to clear my head for
a few months, step back and think
about what I needed to do. And that
was dp mmn thing, to go play football
r —
«
It was a goodfit for
me, because of what
they wanted to do on
offense”
DeAngelo Evans
former Nebraska running back
Evans holds the Kansas high
school rushing record with 8,473
yards and chose Nebraska over Penn
State and Notre Dame.
He chose Emporia State in part
because of the number of familiar
faces on the team, Evans said. Larry
Randle, Lester McCoy and Dontaye
McCoy all played at Wichita
Southeast High School.
“Coach Kill is a good friend of my
high school coach, Mike Geher, and
so I’ll trust their opinions,” Evans said.
“I think it will be a good fit. Coach
Kill knows a lot about football, and I
learned a lot from a great program
(Nebraska) in my three years there....
I just haven’t been able to stay
healthy.”
Geher said the move to Emporia
State was good for Evans.
“He was bitter about what hap
pened at Nebraska,” Geher said. “ButI
did not lead him to Emporia State. He
just looked around and decided that
Emporia State was die place for him.”
The Hornets have lacked a reliable
running game since die graduation of
Brian Shay, who set NCAA rushing
and scoring records fra* all divisions.
Shay rushed for 6,958 yards and 88
touchdowns.
-:l_I
“The House that Cigarettes
Built,” Nebraska’s Bob Devaney
Sports Center, constructed with state
sin tax dollars in 1976, has seen the
completion of an internal facelift
_! The aim for the $7.9 million Fan
Amenities Project was to create an
environment at the Bob Devaney
Sports Center that was more fan
friendly and designed to attract more
fans to struggling Husker basketball
games.
A men’s basketball program that
was profiting nicely in the early and
mid-‘90s now barely has its head
above water and is sinking fast. The
new renovations inside were made to
counter this.
Additions in the project include
chair-back seating on the floor, new
lighting, a new sound system and not
one, but two almighty HuskerVision
replay boards. Of course, accompa
nying the vast benefits of
HuskerVision and the makeover of
the Devaney Center is everybody’s
All-American buddy: corporate
sponsorship. -
The new renovations, and espe
cially the commercialization of the
games, are jusf another rung in the
ladder of sports becoming more
about flash and cash and less about
the reason fans should be there in the
first place: the games.
The replay boards are designed
to create more excitement and get
the crowd jacked up and excited by,
oddly enough, showing replays,
among other things, such as player
and team features, all mixed in with
the overwhelming presence of cor
porate America.
But a plan that has worked well
at Memorial Stadium for slower
paced football games won’t for up
tempo, run-and-gun basketball
games.
After a touchdown or particular
ly spectacular play in football, the
crowd has 2010 30 seconds to check
out the screens for another angle on
the play.
Basketball gives no such break
after a spectacular dunk or a breath
taking pass.
With the way both basketball
teams have played at times this year,
burdened with turnovers, poor shots
and all-around bad games, some
times once has been too often to see
some of their plays.
In one instance, a game was held
up indirectly because of the new
HuskerVision screens.
During a time-out of the
Nebraska-Drake women’s basketball
game, a camera crew was still on the
floor after shooting a children’s relay
race, and the teams had already lined
up, ready to inbound the ball. “What
part of get off the court don’t you
understand?” the referee shouted to
them.
All around the arena now, and
especially on the video boards, the
stamp of Corporate America has
swarmed the Sports Center and been
crammed right down the fans’
throats.
“Today’s corporate sponsor
(insert company name here) wel
comes you to the Bob Devaney
Sports Center for tonight’s contest
matching your Nebraska
Cornhuskers and the (insert low
quality, directional school here).”
Companies such as Ford, Pepsi,
Runza, Nebraska Public Power and
Embassy Suites have all chipped in
for ad space around the arena and on
the replay boards.
The worst combination of private
funding and school spirit, maybe
ever, is the “Nebraska Public Power
Husker Power Chant.” It is sad that a
sponsor would even be considered
for a cheer.
How much of the $7.9 million of
this project was spent on new com
pact discs? At every dead ball of the
game a different song is blasting out
of the new sound system, too loud
and too often.
The basketball games have
turned into a concert of sorts
At some points, during an out
of-bounds call or some other
turnover, a song will start, and when
the ball is put back into play four
seconds later, it fades out before it
ever really begins. The whole
process is more annoying than enter
taining.
The plan hasn’t been working
ideally so far. Through three men’s
home games, average attendance is
down 15 percent. A loss to Western
Carolina, and, consequently, a third
place finish in their own tournament
and an overtime squeaker against
Eastern Illinois don’t exactly give
the marketing department a whole
lot to work with.
The same goes for the ladies, too.
Their attendance is down 14 percent
from this same time last year. Their
loss to Drake was the fourth in their
last six home dates, dating back to
last season.
You could pass out $20 bills at
the turnstiles and still not get fans in
the seats if the product on the floor
isn’t fun to watch.
That is all beside the point, how
ever.
The games have now become
more of a spectacle in advertising
and extravagance, and while corpo
rate fat-cats turn back flips in their
comer offices, the basketball purists
of yesteryear turn over in their
graves.
David Diehl is a freshman
news-editorial major and a Daily
Nebraskan staff writer.