Setup concerns NU
By Jamie Suhr
Staff writer
Gary Pepin, Nebraska track and
field coach, didn’t get what he
expected when the team accepted a
bid in the USTCA National
Invitational Team Championship
on Friday and Saturday in Austin,
Texas.
When he first decided to go to
the Invitational, Pepin said he was
under the impression the meet
would use a different scoring sys
tem than the one used at the NCAA
Championships.
Under the new scoring system,
a team could submit only its two
best competitors in each event, put
ting a premium oil a complete
team.
In order to make the invitation
al the best team meet it can be, the
USTCA agreed to invite teams
based on overall power ranking.
“We thought it would be a real
team meet in the manner that all
events would be covered, unlike the
national championships which
doesn’t represent a team’s effort,”
Pepin said.
According to trackwire power
It’s a great honor to compete in a
meet like this. It shows the continued
tradition here at Nebraska.
rankings, the NU men are unranked
while die women are No. 10.
Pepin isn’t disappointed with
just the scoring system. Because of
the entry format, only the top two
athletes in each event can partici
pate, forcing NU to leave some
quality athletes at home.
For example, four Husker
triple-jumpers scored points for the
men at the Big 12 Conference
Indoor Championships, but just
two - Sheldon Hutchinson and
Daniel Johnson - will be making
the trip.
To be eligible for the meet, an
invited team must be able to place
two athletes in each event.
“It’s a great honor to compete in
a meet like this,” freshman shot
putter Leann Boerema said. “It
shows the continued tradition here
at Nebraska.”
The No. 1 team in the country,
Leann Boerema
freshman shot putter
Southern California, also will be in
attendance. Both the Husker men
and women finished second to
USC at a quadrangular at Los
Angeles on April 1.
The men fell by a point, 193
192, while the women finished
with 170 points to USC’s 185.
Mark Kostek, javelin and
multi-events coach, said this meet
will be like a “super conference
meet.”
Traditionally, the best track
teams in the nation are found in the
Southeastern Conference with
Louisiana State, Tennessee, South
Carolina and Florida all attending
the USTCA Invite.
The Big 12 and Pac 10
Conferences also will be represent
ed heavily with Washington State
and UCLA joining USC and Texas,
Texas A&M and Kansas State join
ing NU.
Collier names new assistant
From staff reports
Nebraska Men’s Basketball Coach
Barry Collier rounded out his coaching
staff Wednesday by hiring a familiar
face.
Kevin Mouton was an assistant on
Collier’s Butler staff from 1993 to
1995. Now, he is a Husker assistant as
well.
Collier said he was pleased to add
Mouton to the new NU coaching staff
that also includes recent hires Dave
Campbell and Reggie Rankin.
“Kevin is a bright young coach who
I have known for 15 years,” he sakL “He
will bring a great deal of enthusiasm to
the Nebraska program, and his coach
ing and recruiting talents fit well with
the rest of the staff.”
Last season Mouton was an assis
tant at Saint Mary’s College of
California. His other coaching stints
include three years at New Hampshire
and Eastern Illinois.
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Sports portrayed in movies
■ Movies that are based
on sports blur line between
forms of entertainment.
NEW YORK (AP) - After months
of searching in vain, director Gina
Prince-Bythewood finally found the
perfect actress to star in her debut movie.
There was just one hitch: Sanaa
Lathan couldn’t dribble.
“I always knew she was a great
actor, but she had never picked up a ball
before,” Prince-Bythewood said. “I was,
like, ‘I can’t hire someone who can’t
play ball!”’
So Lathan endured a five-month,
six-days-a-week training session just to
be able to post up like a pro in Prince
Bythewood’s “Love and Basketball.”
Director James Toback had the
opposite problem while making “Black
and White.” He had to turn a couple of
athletes - New York Knjcks star Allan
Houston and boxer Mike Tyson - into
actors.
“You have to give them something
that feels close to the way they would
talk and the way they would think,”
Toback said “You’re basically just ask
ing them to respond the way they would
respond.”
Jocks memorizing dialogue? Actors
practicing three-point shots? It can
mean only one thing: Hollywood’s love
affair with sports is in full bloom this
spring.
And watch out: It’s getting harder to
tell the two worlds apart
“When you talk about sports and
Hollywood, you really have a marriage
of two truly central American institu
tions. America is a society that likes to
watch things,” said Charles E. Marskie,
a St. Louis University sociologist.
“We are in an era where people are
flush with money. Enormous amounts
of that money are pouring into entertain
ment and sports,” he said. “And it seems
to me that sports has become almost
indistinguishable in my mind from
entertainment.”
Hybrid stars are already upon us. In
the wake of Dennis Rodman and
Michael Jordan are Shaquille O’Neal
and Kobe Bryant, not to mention
Alonzo Mourning, the new AT&T
spokesman.
Football greats Dick Butkus, Johnny
Unitas, Barry Switzer and Jim Brown
recently appeared in “Varsity Blues,”
while former linebacker Lawrence
Taylor snagged roles in “The Waterboy”
and “Any Given Sunday.”
This summer, Keanu Reeves and
Gene Hackman play a couple of NFL
scabs who fill in when the regular play
ers go on strike in “The Replacements.”
Boxing is particularly hot. On the
heels of “The Hurricane” and “To the
Bone,” there’s buzz about the upcoming
boxing drama “Girlfight,” while Will
Smith is getting ready to play
Muhammad Ali.
Before that, Smith plays a golf cad
die and spiritual guru for Matt Damon in
a Robot Redford-directed summer flick
“The Legend of Bagger Vance.”
Even movie stars are getting into the
game. Michael Douglas and a few of his
acting buddies recently got network air
time for a golf tournament benefiting
charity. And wasn’t that Geena Davis
trying out for the Olympic archery
team?
“The infatuation with athletes
among people from all walks of life is at
a high point. It’s the ultimate form of
celebrity,” Toback said. “Essentially,
they are at the center of the whole cul
ture.”
Hollywood’s attraction to athletes is
nothing new, of course. One of the earli
est films depicted a prize fight in Las
Vegas between James J. “Gentleman
Jim” Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons in
1897.
Now, with a smorgasbord of sports
on the airwaves 24 hours a day, hyper
linked on the Web and splashed across
magazines and newspapers, how can
Hollywood compete?
“There’s so mijch pure sports on
cable that to produce a movie that’s sim
ply a replication of sports on the field
doesn’t seem to me to add much,”
Marskie said.
So as sports expands - even spilling
over into fictional behind-the-scenes
shows like ABC’s “SportsNight” - the
traditional way Hollywood tackles the
genre has been altered.
“Certainly in the way sports movies
are presented to the audience, the visual
part of it has changed,” said Jimmy
Smits, who stars in the boxing fable
“Price of Glory” and, in a stroke of syn
ergy, was host at this year’s ESPY
Awards for ESPN. Prince-Bythewood
said sports shown in movies have to look
authentic to audiences reared on up
close, instant-replay, real sports footage.
That’s why actor Jon Seda, a former
Golden Gloves boxer, was a natural to
cast for “Price of Glory;” and it’s why
Ray Allen, a pro basketball player,
anchored Spike Lee’s “He Got Game.”
It’s also the reason Lathan had to
spend hours pounding a gym floor
before the cameras could ever roll on
“Love and Basketball.”
Even so, Prince-Bythewood was
nervous on the eve of her film’s opening
this weekend, but not because of the crit
ics. She was more concerned about the
reaction from a key group of women to
the movie and Lathan.
“My scariest screening actually was
for the women’s Olympic team and the
WNBA’s veterans camp,” she said. “If
there’s anyone out there that will dis her
basketball - if they see any little thing -
it will be them.”
Brink finalist for the Honda Award
From staff reports
Nebraska senior gymnast Heather
Brink has an opportunity to add to her
list of things that she was the first to
do.
Brink has been named as one of
four finalists for the 1999-2000
Honda Award, which is given every
year to the top female atMete.in each
of 11 sports. From the 11 winners, one
is selected as the Collegiate Woman
Athlete of the Year, which a Nebraska
woman has never won.
Brink was the first gymnast in NU
history to win an all-around national
title with her 39.6 last weekend at the
NCAA Championships in Boise,
Idaho. Brink was also the first gym
nast to ever scene a perfect 10, pulling
off the feat Feb. 15 on die vault.
' The most decorated gymnast in
Comhusker history, Brink earned two
national titles this year - the 2000 all
around and vault crowns. She has
earned 11 All-American honors, six
regional titles and eight conference
titles.
As the Big 12 and Region 3 gym
nast of the year, Brink is up for the
award with Michigan's Sarah Cain,
UCLA’s Heidi Moneymaker and
Florida's Cbrissy Van Fleet, .5
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