McKewon: Observations of an
NU sports culture gone glitzy
END from page 24
times.
It isn’t going to shape up quite as simply as
NU thinks it will next season. Losses are out
there. The offensive line is massive, yes, but
Nebraska is an Eric Grouch injury away from
running the wrong offense for Newcombe to
prosper in.
But Crouch probably won’t get hurt.
The odds, no matter what Nebraska coaches
say, are on his side. Crouch played through
every little hurt last year, as did Scott Frost in
1996 and 1997. Tommie Frazier missed one half
in 1995. He missed three halves - though never
a full game - in 1993. NU seems scared off by
1994 and 1998, horror years with freak injuries
to both Frazier and Newcombe. But a better
offensive line means more running back carries.
Crouch won’t always have to nose dive into the
line on those trap options. And that’s a good
thing.
une more ior i_roucn: scram Die.
There are often fields of green open for
Crouch to scamper away into, but he seems
adamant to throw on the few chances he can. All
fine and good, but one 15-yard scramble sets up
the next three pass plays. If the line stays
healthy, Crouch shouldn’t get sacked more than
five times all season. He can assure by tucking
it down once a game.
If Thunder Collins is half what he’s sup
posed to be, give his dice a couple rolls.
Crotchety old sportswriters cringe at the
promotion of an unknown quantity. But haven’t
Correll Buckhalter and Dan Alexander had their
chances? If Coach Frank Solich is serious about
figuring the I-back situation out for the future,
it’s time to start.
Men’s basketball: Danny Nee’s legacy
will live on for a few more years.
Boy, did Nee’s reign get slim near the end.
Just look at Kenny Booker.
Anyway, Barry Collier cannot get a perfect
fix next year without a miracle. This team needs
repairing. Get to the Big Dance and call it good.
Time for Cookie Belcher to talk.
The Steve Carlton routine is getting old.
Belcher’s a captain, and wouldn’t give a word
when Collier was hired. Time to talk. On any
thing. Or back it up with a triple-double average
next year.
The atmosphere stinks.
The Devaney Center is the dead zone. The
team entrance looks like it was invented by a
fourth grader. In fact, there is no entrance.
And whoever decides such things: Shut off
HuskerVision and let the band play. I beg of
you. Shove those Husker highlights in the clos
et.
rigure out a way tor the students to stand
without tarping over the seats. Those B section
folks are old toads, anyway.
Soccer: Get the team closer to campus.
After all die useless renovations, the
Nebraska soccer team remains the bastard child
offocilities, as the Abbott Sports Complex lies
between a dog chow plant and two giant wind
mills. I know it’s a fantastic facility for all
involved. But die team is underexposed to the
[p Student population.
JHI dnav 5,000-10,000, legitimately, if there
field on campus. Abbott is nice, but it^s
P djjHar away. There has to be a little money left
"rn the war chest, doesn’t there? Maybe five
years down the road? You can’t tell me soccer
players enjoy driving out there every day for
practice.
i , ; , Wamen’s basketball: Year one of the Paul
Sauderford era really begins next year.
Itfs his team next year in full. Not to say that
the holdovers from the Angela Beck era -
Nicole Rubik, Brooke Schwartz and Charlie
Rogers - were poor by any standards. But NU
becomes a much more physical team in 2001.
And Stephanie Jones, provided she’s healthy,
will be all-conference.
The Cyclones aren’t going anywhere. The
Huskers will have enough guards in 2001-2002,
but Robinette is the franchise-type player you
don’t want to pass up.
The atmosphere doesn’t stink, but junk
the smoke and lights for the introduction.
That fad is ending. Jokey introductions are
becoming lame. Retro is back in. Just get to the
damn game.
Yellow-coated old-man ushers: Chill oat
Look, there’s 4,000 people in the stands
who’d rather have the best seats in the house and
make some noise than sit in Finland. You’re 70
years old. Either retire to the golf course or lay
off‘em when they move down from the rafters.
Have a Coke and smile, old man. You’re getting
paid to do nothing.
Thick: Construct a Merlene Ottey shrine.
Whoever decides such
things: Shut off
HuskerVision and let
the band play. I beg of
you. Shove those
Husker higlights in
the closet.
Do it. A big one. It’s that simple. Or name
the indoor or outdoor track after her. Like Ed
Weir really needs it.
Yellow-coated old men at track meets:
Chill out even more than the regular yellow
coated old men.
Do not tell me that media members cannot
sit in an entirely empty reserved section. And do
not tell me that NU Coach Gary Pepin can’t sit
wherever the hell he wants on his own damn
track. Again, a Coke and a smile.
Wrestling: Hire Mark Cody or Jason
Kelber and get on with it
The NU wrestlers have spoken. Need they
be punished any further? And ifTim Neumann
wants to stop by and watch a practice or two, the
Athletic Department better let him. If 7-year-old
batboys can dink around in the dugout,
Neumann ought to have a spot on the bench
whenever he wants. NU got rid of him; it does
n’t mean he isn’t still family.
Softball: Keep up the loud, unnerving
mams.
Yeah, they’re annoying. If I were an oppos
ing coach, I’d hate them. So they’re perfect.
Actually why are they playing softball?
Nebraska ought to become a pioneer and start
women’s collegiate baseball.
Baseball, played by men or women, is a
strategically superior game to softball. I’m not
sure a game can be entirely pure when it doesn’t
allow a runner to lead off.
Plus, if women quit the game of fast-pitch
softball, it would force the end of men’s fast
pitch softball, where every pitcher can be Nolan
Ryan over and over again.
School is Cool Jam: Cease and desist.
NU is getting more out of saying they have
one than the kids are getting out of seeing it. All
you really need is that leadership awards cere
mony that unquestionably had every boy and
girl in rapture. Right after the rape victims, right
before Rory, the life-sized dancing skunk bal
loon. You know, adversity. It smells.
Old men who play parking cops at
Devaaey: Chill out the most
I can see eight empty metered spots. Do not
tell me someone is going to park there in the
next five minutes when they’ve been empty all
day. Wtijjtare they going to do, fire you?
MnejMi: Stay perfect.
This sport has it down, win or lose. The
atmosphere, the players, all of it. College sports
the way it ought to be.
BawkerViMoii: If you’re going to be cre
ative with those player videos, watch some
rrdlarir ihnrrtnrs.
HereY what I’m thinking: Ingmar
Bejgjnsn’s “Persona.” The beach scene with one
continuous tracking shot. Plug Crouch and
Newcoaabc in for Alma and Elisabeth, and
you’ve get a real player video. I leave it to you.
Remetnber, if!s in Swedish. One of the swim
mers can help you with translations.
As always, I believe you are die antithesis of
all that is right with sports. But if you did it with
artistic flair and visceral dramatics, well, at least
itiite a cool antithesis.
I^^ank Solicit:The password is... defi
iK
Means pretty much the same thing as cer
tainly. In coachspeak, anyway. Give it a 30-day
trial. Make it your offspeed pitch.
Rich frat guys: Have I got an early betting
tip for you!
Iowa, straight up, against Nebraska. Lay
your dime down, swig that Busch Light and
watch the money roll home.
Bill Byrne: Come a time when your bill
runs due.
That line comes from my West Virginia
mystic side.
It’s a big pile of sand you're playing in right
now, Bill.
Have fun with it.
Samuel McKewon is a junior political sci
ence major and the Daily Nebraskan sports
editor.
Gaskins: Scandals, surprises
intrigue fans, sports pundits
QUIZ from page 24
and I’m sure the people at HuskerVision will
remind us that during every time out at every
football game or Devaney Center event next
season with highlights and music.
But seriously, it was an intriguing year. A
year that every media slob like myself - who
leeches off sports figures and events (and deli
cious pre-game media buffet food) for you
leeching sports fans’ information and amuse
ment - go koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs for.
It was a year that made fans cheer - for Big
12 championships in football, volleyball, soccer
and track and field. It was a year that made fans
mourn - for Charlie McBride and Terry Pettit’s
retirements, for the heartbreaking soccer team’s
loss, for the scandal of Wrestling Coach Tim
Neumann, one of the most popular coaches in
the program.
There was plenty of early-season juicy foot
ball team gossip beyond what the players’ pants
should look like or how many touchdowns the
Huskers would beat their Third-World non-con
ference opponents by.
There were players quitting, players threat
ening to quit, players driving back to Omaha to
be rumored of threatening to quit, players talk
ing smack about their teammates quitting. Oh,
and then a decent 12-1 season followed.
There was a men’s basketball season that
can be summed up in one word - brick - and a
coach who will be remembered not as much for
his record-breaking win, but the infamous
“Sons of Bitches” booster banquet speech. You
can’t get that kind of gravy at Kansas.
There was a women’s basketball team that
seemed to relish lodging a gun down its throat
before removing it at the last second and living
to see another day and a third-straight NCAA
Tournament appearance.
Finally, there was the best women’s gymnas
tics team and athlete (Heather Brink) in die his
tory of the program and a baseball team that put
together a conference-record 15-game winning
streak, only to have it snapped by a team that
my great-grandfather’s nursing-home squad
could beat.
so wnat will 1 remember most from the
1999-2000 year in Nebraska athletics?
It might be the looks of sheer confidence on
the faces of the football players after their Fiesta
Bowl victory over Tennessee, confidence that
said, “look out next year.”
It might be the poetic rhetoric - loaded with
metaphor, analogy and anecdote that made
great quotes for both sports pages and literary
society newsletters - and condescending stare
downs from Renaissance Man Terry Pettit, who
orchestrated his 23rd and final volleyball sym
phony and in the process gave a young and
naive sports reporter the ultimate challenge:
how to ask questions to which the answers
won’t make you feel very stupid.
(fa aH seriousness, I learned a lot and gained
a lot of respect for both Pettit and the volleyball
progam. ft is everything an athletic program
shouldbe - the athletes are intelligent, courte
ous, dignified and come out of it successful
people. And the games involve nothing but die
action, the tins and die band - no frills, no dis
tractions, just pure atmosphere.)
ftdrijpftbe the silence in the Devaney
Center for men’s basketball games. The fans
wore acting more like they were watching a
funeral, or a pig slaughtering, than they were
cheering at a basketball game, and for good rea
son. Cheer for the team, and the team might be
inspired to win. Team wins, coach might stay.
NoMy wanted that, so the place stayed silent,
and tile team kept losing.
But, no, my most memorable moment
would be a toss-up. Let’s see, was it the exhila
ration I felt when I first laid eyes on the
Mexican-style buffet before the Nebraska-Texas
game at Austin, or was it the Thanksgiving-style
smorgasbord at the Fiesta Bowl? Oh, that stuff
ing was to die for!
Now, for the quiz. Before I start, I’m happy
to report that this quiz will not include any:
■ Danny Nee hair jokes
■ Frank Sollch midget jokes
■ Paul Sanderford temper jokes
■ Gary Pepin fashion jokes*
■ Craig Bohl bald jokes
I Joe Walker jewelry jokes*
■ George Darlington Elmer Fudd
jokes
On with the quiz....
l.To correct his running backs’ fumbling
problems from last season (NU led the nation
with 49 fumbles, 25 of diem lost), Football
Coach Frank Sollch has decided to:
a. Have team psychologist Jack Stark hyp
notize them into eliminating the thought of a
fumble from their minds
b. Crazy Glue their hands
c. Enlist the help of Tim Neumann and for
mer members of the wrestling team, who, until
April, seemed to have the art of smooth hand
offs down pat
2. What fired Basketball Coach Danny
meant to say at a mid-season Omaha boost
ers meeting was:
a. “All you sons of bitches who want me
outta here, I got news for you -- I’m not quit
ting. I’m getting fired!”
b. “All you sons-of-bitches who think I’m
outta here, woops, wait a second, is this thing
on? It is? Oh, shit!”
c. “Which one of you sons-of-bitches wants
to go? Right now! I mean it. I scared almost a
whole team away once!”
3. New Men’s Basketball Coach Barry
Collier will model Women’s Coach Paul
Sanderford’s success most by:
a. Recruiting in-state talent
b. Ticket giveaways
c. Developing an actual offensive scheme
4. Bill Byrne’s next major facility
upgrade will be:
a. Placing HuskerVision screens in the
Nebraska Coliseum, effectively destroying the
atmosphere of college volleyball
b. Placing HuskerVision screens on
Firethom Country Club, effectively destroying
the atmosphere of college golf
c. Placing HuskerVision screens in his
office and cameras in the wrestling facilities,
effectively destroying the atmosphere of NU
wrestling
5. In a home-opening ceremony at the
Coliseum next fall, the Nebraska volleyball
team will honor retired coaching legend
Terry Pettit by:
a. Retiring his clipboard
b. Retiring one of his sweaters
c. Retiring the word “sense,” which, by
virtue of his record-breaking usage of it in press
conferences, should legally be his
6. The Nebraska women’s soccer team
will fall short of the Final Four next year by
virtue of:
a. Another heartbreaking loss to Notre
Dame
b. Another penalty kick shoot-out loss
c. Technical knockout in an overtime bench
clearing brawl
7. Riddled with so many injuries,the
Nebraska men’s gymnastics team had to
resort to:
a. Using scores of inexperienced under
classmen
b. Asking Coach Francis Allen to suit up
c. OSanag wresders “a little something
8. DeAngelo Evans exited the football
team with afl the class and dignity of a:
9. What wBl the baseball team members
i most about Buck Beltzer
s AstnoTurf infield, grass out
'
i view of the energy plant
t the outfield
: outfield, which was also used as a
i practice field, which made it as
safe to run around in as a land mine ,y
10. My favorite overused sports cliche this
year was:
a. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for the
team.”
b. “We’re taking it one game at a time.”
c. “We’re not overlooking (place your Third
World, easy-win, padding-the-schedule, cream
puff team here). They’re a good team, and ills
going to take a solid performance to beat them.”
11. What we learned most about the
Athletic Department in 1999-2000 was:
a. Winning is everything
b. Money is everything
c. It’s not how you win the game, itls how
the Athletic Department spends the money it
makes off your wins
John Gaskins is a junior broadcasting
major and a Daily Nebraskan sports writer.