NU shoots for another shutout
■The soccer team is aiming for
itsfourth infourgamesin
Sunday's contest against Drury.
BY ANAND MADHAVAN
The Nebraska football team
isn't the only team in Lincoln
with a swarming defense.
Maybe the NU women’s soc
cer team should be known as the
Lady Blackshirts.
With three consecutive
shutouts on the season - victo
ries of 11-0, 5-0 and 4-0 - it is
clear the Comhuskers have been
very stingy, allowing only six
shots on their own goal.
“We defend as a team. We get
excellent pressure from our for
ward positions,” Coach John
Walker said. “We also have some
of the best defenders in the
country.”
One of those defenders is
Husker senior Karina LeBlanc,
the team’s All-American goal
keeper. LeBlanc and the team’s
fitness are key reasons why the
Husker defense is so dominant.
“The style we play is high
pressure,” LeBlanc said. “We
basically just wear the oppo
nents down.”
The Huskers’ next opponent
is the Drury Panthers. The teams
face off at 7 p.m. Sunday at the
Abbott Sports Complex.
Drury is a team the Huskers
don’t know very well, but they do
know the Panthers ended the ’99
season 12-6-1.
The Huskers are taking
Sunday night’s match as a chal
lenge.
“We're preparing for this
File Photo
Junior forward Kelly Rheem drives past a Southwest Missouri State defender in the
Husker's shutout victory last week. The Huskers have yet to allow a goal this season.
They hope to continue that streak against Dniry on Sunday.
game like any other,” Walker
said. "We are definitely focused
on executing well.”
LeBlanc agrees that focus is
another key to the game.
* "I know they are a team that if
we don't play well, they have the
potential to beat us,” LeBlanc
said. “If we play like we can,
things are gonna be good for us.”
LeBlanc hopes to earn anoth
er scoreless victory. It would be
the fourth shutout posted by the
Huskers this season.
“I hope to get a shutout in the
next game,” LeBlanc said.
"Our team goal against Drury
is to finish our chances that we
get and set the pace for the game
early.”
Young runners get feet wet
BY JILLZEMAN
Nebraska’s top cross country
runners will remain at home this
weekend for the first meet of the
season.
And it's not because of a
coaching error or an incredibly
injury-plagued team.
Rather, Saturday's meet, the
Bearcat Distance Classic in
Maryville, Mo., will be used as a
warm-up for the younger, less
experienced runners, said Jay
Dirksen, who coaches the men’s
and women’s cross country teams
at Nebraska.
"It’s kind of a low-key meet,”
he said.
"We like to take the freshmen
to something other than the first
home meet so they can get an idea
of what it's like.”
Dirksen said he wifi send four
men to compete. They will be led
by sophomore Jed Barta.
Barta is recovering from a
knee injury, and Dirksen said he
expecdfrum to be in the top five or
six of Mbraska’s runners by the
end of the season.
Sophomore Phil Davis and
freshmen Eric Rasmussen and
Kyle Wyatt will round out the
men’s team. *
With only four runners, the
men will not be able to compete as
a team, but Dirksen said the meet
is for the individuals' benefits any
» way.
On the same note, Dirksen
said he will send five women to
run Saturday. They also will be
focusing on their individual
efforts.
Senior Deb Osteen, sopho
mores Melissa Drozda and Christy
Linnell and freshmen Morgan
Hartman and Hillary Laird will
run the for the team Saturday, he
said.
The meet will be sort of a prac
tice for most teams because the
men and women will run shorter
distances than in regular races
throughout the season.
The next meet for the Huskers
is the Woody Greeno/Nebraska
Invitational on Sept. 16 at
Pioneers Park in Lincoln.
Not your typical pushover team
GASKINS from page 10
featuring Mr. Woods and Anna
Kornikova (lucky for me) drop
by.
That’s all. Hell, even Cal and
Stanford and Arena Football
beat SJSU out in interest
Go online to
mercurycenter.com, the Web site
for the San Jose Mercury News, a
well-respected newspaper.
There you will find a grand total
of three football articles written
from March 30 through the
summer.
Hungry for TV coverage? I
worked for the sports dudes at
San Jose’s lone television sta
tion, KNTV (The area receives
all of San Francisco’s stations.).
Although the station is a chip
shot^away from SJSU, the
Spartans hardly ever get the top
bill, unless they are playing
Nebraska or Stanford.
That’s not because of lazi
ness. It's called viewer demand.
And in the Bay Area, there is lit
tle of it for Spartan football.
Combine that coverage and
recreational competition with
the fact that SJSU is a total com
muter campus (making UNO
seem like Collegetown, USA),
with a state university system
that has strict gender equity
rules that limit it to 96 football
scholarships, and with five or
fewer home games a year, and
you’ve got a football program
that won't be reaching
Nebraska-like proportions any
time soon.
Which is why SJSU comes to
Lincoln like Akron and Middle
Tennessee State do in the first
place: to live vicariously the life
of a football school, and to make
some bucks that may make it
one in the very distant future.
Hey, you never know. A less
than disastrous showing at NU,
a second-straight upset over
Stanford and a fourth-place fin
ish in the WAC, and SJSU may
just find itself in the spanking
new Silicon Valley Bowl, at its
own stadium, which would
surely be the crowning moment
of recent Spartan football.
Not that anyone would
notice.
Team to ignore scoreboard in Nil game
jrAKiAiijTrom page 10
can’t quit at any time.”
light end Sean Brewer, who
Baldwin said could also line up at
wide receiver and I-back, agreed,
saying he doesn’t care what the
score of the game is.
“When I walk off the field I can
say I competed hard against the
No. 1 team in the country, that I
left it all out there on that field,
Brewer said. “Points I don't care
about as long as I have that satis
faction along with my team.”
Competing with the No. 1
team in the nation also means
competing with the huge support
it gets, like 77,000 fans in red.
Support that Brewer said he -
envies.
"But what else is there to do in
Would you accept S30
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cow? Football is the big tiling each
week - to drive however many
miles to watch Nebraska play.”
But despite the sea of red, and
despite their huge underdog sta
tus, the Spartans will try to hang in
there o„n Saturday. They’re not
dreading it. In fact, exactly the
opposite is true.
“I'm really, really excited,”
Brewer said. “It’s the opportunity
of a lifetime to go out there and
compete with them. I can’t wait to
see what it’s all about”
“Regardless of what
the situation is in this
first game, I would
like to see us playing
as hard on the last
snap... as we did on
the first snap.”
Dave Baldwin
San Jose State football coach
Internet
Nebraska
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Badgers forced to bench 11 players
■The NCAA suspended 26for
receiving unadvertised
discounts at a shoe store. v
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The NCAA suspended 26
Wisconsin football players
Thursday for receiving unadver
tised discounts at a shoe store,
forcing the Badgers to bench 11
players for their season opener.
Some of the players sus
pended for the No. 4 Badgers’
game with Western Michigan on
Thursday night included start
ing receivers Chris Chambers
and Nick Davis, cornerback
Jamar Fletcher, offensive line
man Ben Johnson and line
backer Bryson Thompson.
Eleven of the 26, including
Fletcher, Davis, Johnson and
Chambers, were suspended for
three games for receiving bene
fits of more than $500, school
officials said.
Another 15 players, includ
ing running back Michael
Bennett, defensive tackle
Wendell Bryant, cornerback
Mike Echols and Thompson,
were suspended for one game
and ordered to do 12 hours of
community service.
Chambers’ suspension
could be an especially tough
blow to the Badgers. The team’s
leading receiver from last season
was already sidelined by a stress
fracture in his right foot. He was
expected to be kept out until at
least the end of September.
School officials aren’t sure if he
will be allowed to serve the sus
pension while injured, meaning
he could miss more than half the
season.
"I think you have tremen
dous disappointment. You have
to feel for them,” Wisconsin ath
letic director Pat Richter said.
“We felt this was not warranted."
The NCAA ordered all 26
players to serve the suspensions
within the first four games of the
season. The other six suspended
for Thursday’s game were:
Delante McGrew, George Pratt,
Ryan Simmons, Chuck Smith,
Stephon Watson and Scott Wille.
The suspensions stem from
reports last month that mem
bers of the football and men’s
basketball teams may have
received special credit arrange
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Another 21 players, includ
ing starting quarterback Brooks
Bollinger, were nost suspended
but were ordered to perform 24
hours of community service for
the discounts they received.
Women’s soccer player
Wynter Pero was suspended for
two games arid ordered to do 24
hours of community service.
All will be required to repay
the discounts they received.
The school also investigated
allegations that some athletes
may have exchanged university
issued shoes for merchandise
but found no evidence of that so
far, said Melany Newby, vice
chancellor for legal and execu
tive affairs.
A report in the Wisconsin
State Journal detailed purchases
by eight members of the
Badgers’ Final Four men’s bas
ketball team and 14 players from
the Rose Bowl champion foot
ball team. The paper reported
players received discounts of 25
percent to 40 percent and inter
est-free credit.
The university and NCAA
still have to review the eligibility
of winter athletes who also could
face penalties.
1116 NCAA notified the uni
versity Monday that 81 fall ath
letes would be ineligible in vari
ous capacities. Richter said the
university appealed the finding,
and the NCAA then decided to
knock down the number of ath
letes required to serve suspen
sions and pay reparations to 48.
Richter said the university
proposed lighter sanctions
when they made their initial
report to the NCAA, and many of
the players told NCAA officials
they did not know they had vio
lated any rules.
“This was a shock to them,”
Richter said.
NCAA spokesman Wally
Renfro confirmed the suspen
sions but would not comment
specifically on the infractions.
Shoe Box owner Steve
Schmitt said Thursday he talked
to university officials several
times about the discounts he
offered players, which he said
are extended to all his regular
customers.
Schmitt has men’s basketball
7 think you have
tremendous
disappointment. You
have to feel for them.
We felt this was not
warranted."
Pat Richter
Wisconsin athletic director
season tickets and has donated
money to the university in the
past, which would qualify him as
a booster under NCAA rules.
Newby said the university^
investigation was continuing
and the school had not made a
recommendation to the NCAA
on whether the violations con
stitute a major or secondary vio
lation. But the players’ trans
gressions individually were
ruled to be secondary.
If the purchases constitute a
major rules violation, it would
be the third such infraction
within the last decade for the
university.
The wrestling program was
put on probation in 1994 for
improper use of booster funds
that included impermissible
benefits to athletes, a major
rules violation.
Last year, the NCAA found
the athletic department had
committed a major rules infrac
tion because coaches and staff
members received reimburse
ment for expenses from a boost
ers fund without approval from
the chancellor.
That probation was sched
uled to end in November.
Still, the NCAA Committee
on Infractions did not penalize
the university under repeat vio
lator rules last year, partly
because Wisconsin self-reported
the violations.
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