Nee career mixes triumph, tough times
tormer Husker says nine players wanted coach gone
WALKOUT from page 16
NCAA Tournament success seemed
inevitable. NU then lost to Kansas 88
73 on national television. Then came a
loss to Kansas State, 77-68, three days
later.
The start of February would bring
loss after loss, bad on-court behavior
and, ultimately, the practice boycott.
Nelson said many of the players on
the team were frustrated with their
lack of playing time or (unfair treat
ment.
“For me, it was lack of playing
time,” Nelson said. “But every player
had their own little individual beef
with Coach Nee.”
Many of the problems started with
the team’s leaders, guards Jaron Boone
and Erick Strickland, who would later
be the walkout “ringleaders,” Nelson
said. Neither of them, he said, got
along with Nee very well.
Boone was often labeled as a play
er with a bad attitude, detrimental to
the success of the team.
Not so, Nelson said.
“Bad attitude? Not at all,” Nelson
said. “Jaron was a complex personali
ty, sure. But guys didn’t have a prob
lem with him. He was actually a pretty
good leader for this team.
“He might have had a bad attitude
toward the coaches, but none of us had
any problems with him.”
Boone was suspended for the sec
ond half of the loss to Kansas State,
Nelson said, a game in vtfiich Boone
and Nee repeatedly clashed.
The guard would sit out the next
game against Iowa State, a 75-65 loss.
In Boone’s first game back, against
Missouri. Strickland was ejected after
two technical fouls. NU lost that game
99-98.
The rest of the team didn’t exactly
show much concern. Against Iowa
State again on Feb. 10, newspaper sto
ries reported it was evident that players
were not paying attention in huddles.
Following that 74-59 loss. Daily
Nebraskan reporters heard team
members shouting and singing in the
locxer room.
At the time.
Nee said things
could be fixed
with a win.
“The prob
lem is when you
start losing,” he
said. “It’s like a
family when two
brothers or sis
ters start fighting
or disagreeing.
That’s what you
heard in the lock
er room. That’s
the problem.”
D. +1_
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lems weren’t going to be fixed before
the walkout.
The boycott
Nelson calls it “the most traumatic
four days of my college basketball
career.”
Notice four days, not two. Nelson
said the walkout began after the loss to
Iowa State Feb. 10. NU wouldn’t play
again for another week, so the nine
Huskers hatched a plan to get Nee
fired.
“We met every night during our
rest period to find out what we were
gonna do,” he said. “It started right
after that loss.”
Current NU forward Larry
Florence, who was a redshirt at the
time, could see that problems would
arise.
“I think guys just had something
bottled up inside them,” Florence said.
On the day before the meeting
with Byrne, that bottled emotion
burst. Only Lue and Garner showed up
for a mandatory shoot-around,
because other players had requested
the day off.
The next day, the players met with
Byrne.
The players met as a group. Nelson
^ Byrne was pretty
aggressive about the
whole thing. He
said’ We 'll put five
football players out
there if we have to.'"
Leif Nelson
former NU basketball player
^ This stuff was so blown out of
proportion. It s unbelievable. It was a
problem for 24 hours land that was it.
Thats not the real story of that season
Danny Nee
. NU basketball coach on 1995-96 player walkout
said, and offered up to Byrrie a host of
problems with Nee. Other players in
the meeting, who asked not to be iden
tified, backed up Nelson’s claim that
there were numerous complaints.
They included:
■ Dishonesty about playing time
and/or roles on the team.
■ Inequity between players, for
various reasons.
■ A higher standard for certain
players on the team for no apparent
reason. For example, Nelson said,
some players weren’t allowed to have
facial hair. Others were.
“I always had to be clean-shaven,”
Nelson said. “I know that.”
In the meeting with Byrne, Nelson
said, the plan was to force Nee out.
Plan, actually, might be too refined a
word for those Huskers, he said, as the
group “was so loosely organized” that
there were no sticking points to the
plan and “no set goals.”
Nebraska Assistant Coach Bill
Johnson showed up at the meeting to
try and talk the team down, Nelson
said. The players wouldn’t listen.
There were hopes that Nee would be
gone and replaced with an assistant.
When asked which Husker assis
tant, Nelson named current Director of
Compliance Gary Bargen as what
would have been the team's probable
choice. The 1995-96 Husker media
guide lists Bargen as NU’s Assistant
Compliance Director.
“Everybody got along with
Bargen,” Nelson said.
So the Huskers lobbied. But Byrne
caught them all by surprise.
The athletic director told the play
ers he would
not get rid of
Nee, Nelson
said. And then
Byrne offered
them an ultima
tum that forced
the nine players
to back down
and go back to
practice that
day.
“He said,
‘We’re going to
field a team
with or without
you,”’ Nelson
scuu. nc iuiu
us we could stick around until the end
of academic year and keep our schol
arship, but that was it.
“Byrne was pretty aggressive
about the whole thing. He said, ‘We’ll
put five football players out there if we
have to.' But there was going to be a
team on the court, no matter what.
“We backed down after that. It
took us by surprise.”
The nine players returned to prac
tice in an atmosphere that Nelson
described as “surreal.”
“Very strange,” Nelson said. “It
was like I was in the ‘Twilight Zone.’
But Coach Nee was really positive,
really upbeat about the whole thing.
That surprised me. 1 think he was
happy to have everyone back.”
At the end of the season. Nelson
transferred to Washington State,
where he finished the rest of his career.
He is in his first season of profession
al basketball, currently in between
stints in the International Basketball
Association and the United States
Basketball League.
Nelson said he harbors no ill feel
ings toward Nee now. His term at
Nebraska “just didn’t work out.” Nee
was not the sole reason. Nelson said.
Yet Nelson also said he has “no
regrets” about the walkout, no matter
how difficult it might have been.
Neither does Nee.
The Coach
Nee reclines in the bleachers as
practice begins on the court in front of
him. It is some four years after the
walkout. He is still Nebraska’s coach.
And, for the life of him, he cannot
understand why the incident keeps
getting brought up.
“This stuff was so blown out of
proportion,” he said. “It’s unbeliev
able. It was a problem for 24 hours,
and that was it. That’s not the real story
of that season.”
The coach has a point. The
Huskers’ losing streak reached nine,
but, after falling in the first round of
the Big Eight Tournament, the team’s
path veered sharply again.
The forum for the turnaround was
the National Invitation Tournament.
The Huskers began winning and didn’t
stop until they were cutting down the
nets in Madison Square Garden.
At 21-14 overall, they were NIT
champions. And while Nee said the
team’s regular season was disappoint
ing, he said the post-season was amaz
ing.
It wasn’t until the end of the sea
son, Nee said that Nebraska turned
into the team it could have been all
along.
“The walkout was not a low point
for us because of what happened after
it,” Nee said. “It was a story of tri
umph, a story of triumph over adversi
ty. It really was..”
While Nee thought the champi
onship would bury the problems from
earlier in the season, they did not go
away.
He blames the media.
“I don’t get it. I really don’t,” he
said. “I mean, when you keep repeat
ing the same thing over and over, does
that make it important?”
Nee mentioned a local writer as
being particularly hard on the Huskers
during their NIT run.
“These guys hammered and ham
mered away on us. When we won the
NIT, we got called No. 65, and (the
writer) got hammered for that by his
readers. I just really don’t understand
it, this need to stir up controversy.”
Moving Forward
Time moves on. And Nee, who
said he has recently talked to players
who participated in the walkout,
including Strickland, Boone and
1995-96 guard Tom Wald, said time
heals old wounds.
“I have a better understanding
now, and they have a better under
standing now. It was a momentary
lapse of judgment, and it’s over.”
But Florence, the lone current
player who was around during the
walkout, said that doesn’t make the
matter trivial.
“It was a very serious situation,”
he said. “Anytime you have players
walking out on a coach and going to
the athletic director, it’s important.
And I think Coach Nee changed
because of it. He’s much more
approachable now, a much better com
municator.
“But it was a big deal. That’s for
sure.”
Nelson agreed.
“1 can see why people remember
it,” Nelson said. “I’ve been shut off to
it for so long now, but I still know what
happened for those couple days. I
don’t think I’ll forget it.”
Big 12 foes jump
to Nee’s defense
CAREER from page 16
“I don’t know ail the facts, but
I’ve coached against him twice,
and I do know that he’s a good bas
ketball coach,” Barnes said. “You
have to go back and look at what
he’s done there and what was done
before he got there.”
Nee has 360 wins in all, 106 of
which came during his six seasons
at Ohio University. He has had
seven 20-win seasons at NU and
four at Ohio. His peak for wins
came in 1991, when the Huskers
won 26 games. The lowest win
total a Nee-coached team has pro
duced is seven, during his first
year at Ohio.
He has had only two losing
seasons at NU thus far, the 1988
and 1990 campaigns, but barring a
miracle - a successful sweep of
the Big 12 Tournament and a trip
to the Final Four - the 2000 season
will be his third.
But one fact stands out among
all others - zero wins in five
NCAA Tournament opportunities
at Nebraska.
Will he be judged by that one
standard?
“I would think so,” fifth-year
senior Larry Florence said. “Just
as anyone would. But I don’t think
he will let that dictate his success
as a coach here. That is something
that will always be held against
him, that he never took his team
past the first round of the tourna
ment.
“That is unfortunate but that is
just how society is. People want
people who will win champi
onships.”
Nee has one conference cham
pionship under his belt, and it just
happens to be the only one ever at
NU - the 1994 Big 8 Conference
Tournament. It led to an NCAA
loss to Pennsylvania.
Nee is 1-7 in his career in the
Big Dance, the one win coming in
1983 at Ohio, as the Bobcats
defeated Illinois State 51-49.
Between 1991 and 1994, he led
the Huskers to four straight
appearances but bowed out in the
first round all four times. Nee’s
last NCAA bid came in 1998 and
NU again lost in the first round to
Arkansas, 74-65.
Nee’s teams have five of NU’s
six all-time NCAA appearances
and 11 of its 19 postseason bids.
While Nee has struggled to
find success in the NCAAs, the
National Invitation Tournament
has been rather kind to him.
^ You have to
go back and
look at what
he s done there
and what was
done before he
got there ”
Rick Barnes
Texas basketball coach
He has compiled an impres
sive 14-6 record in the NIT. His
team won the 1996 NIT after fin
ishing seventh in the Big 8
Conference with a 4-10 confer
ence mark. Nee’s first team at NU
went 4-1 in the NIT and nearly
won it, losing to Arkansas-Little
Rock in overtime. The NIT has
vaulted NU over the 20-win hump
three times in Nee’s career.
“He gets a lot of bad publici
ty,” Florence said. “That doesn't
say much about him as a coach or
a person. He should get more
credit than he does.
/\ny nme you get a coacn mat
wins 20 games for as many sea
sons as he has, he has to be doing
something right”
While Nee has the wins, the
postseason appearances and the
tenure to stand by, he also has an
impressive stack of NBA talent.
In his time as an assistant at
Notre Dame and at the helm at NU
and Ohio, Nee has produced 19
players who have played in the
NBA. Names, including Lue,
Piatkowski, Hamilton and Farmer
pop up on the list, and in the end,
NU has produced the second-most
NBA players in the Big 12, with
first place going to Kansas.
Florence said Nee gradually
has gotten better at relating to his
players.
“He’s done a good job of get
ting talented players in here and
has given players a little breathing
room to play their game,”
Florence said. “He has changed
over the time I have been here.
“When I first got here he was a
hard person to talk to outside of
basketball, but over the last couple
of years, he has changed as a
coach and is now somebody you
can talk to off the court.”
II
I Golfers hold own in Texas
From staff reports
Nebraska’s women’s golf team
was in fourth place after the first
day of the GTE “Mo” Morial on
Monday in Houston, Texas, only six
strokes away from overall leader
and Big 12 Conference foe Baylor.
The Cornhuskers shot an overall
score of 623. BU shot 617, Missouri
was 619, and Texas Tech shot a 620.
“Overall, I’m pleased with our
play,” NU Coach Robin Krapfl said.
“We didn’t play perfect, but we
played two solid rounds of golf.
Once the wind picked up in the sec
ond round, we struggled and
seemed to play tired.
“There are a bunch of teams
within a few strokes of winning, so
we just have to see what we can
do.”
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