SportsWeekend
You're a
missed one
Danny Nee
I miss Danny.
Barry Collier may be a better
coach. He'll probably be a better
recruiter. He’s undoubtedly a bet
ter man.
the way you miss
chili cheese dog
you know it ain’t
right, and boy, a
Danny. Not in th
way you missth
smell of mom'
casserole. Mor
Still, I mis
Matthew
part of you is dis- Hansen
gusted by it, but^^^^^^™
every so often you just get the
urge to embrace its utter badness.
That was Danny Nee. You felt
like washing your hands twice
after interviewing the guy.
And yet, I’ll be watching for
Nee’s new team, Robert Morris,
late-night on ESPN 2. In
Dannyspeak, with an East Coast
smartass accent, “Lemme try to
make you understand, you
pricks.”
Oct 14,1999
Preseason press conference
Nee walks into the press
room, the smile of an alligator
frozen on his face.
He looks downright joyful.
You half expect him to break out
in a jig, big feet and bony elbows
flying, at any second.
He has reason to be radiant,
he tells the reporters assembled.
The recruiting class he signed in
the offseason - junior college
transfers Kimani Ffriend, Steffon
Bradford and Danny Walker and
high schoolers Kenny Booker and
Brian Conklin, slated to redshirt
-is his best ever.
Ffriend is potential largely
untapped, Nee says. He compares
Steffon Bradford to Charles
Barkley. He claims Danny Walker
will be a star at the point guard
spot He even gives Booker a plug
as an athletic talent
***
Time proves Nee to be right
about Ffriend. It also proves him
to be wrong about Bradford, very
wrong about Walker and amaz
ingly wrong about Booker,
arguably one of the worst players
ever to be granted a Nebraska
basketball scholarship under
Nee.
Strange thing is, Nee knows
basketball He knows, as he raves
about Walker’s jumper, that the
point guard doesn’t have the
speed or desire to back the some
times-sweet shot up.
He knows that Bradford, a
junior college All American, is
vastly overrated, a solid, depend
able rebounder, yes. But a bud
ding star? Noooooooo.
Thing is, Danny doesn’t care.
Ibis is a show. Ihith is little more
than a nuisance to the showman.
***
Jan.20,2000
The infamous Danny
Nee/horse’s ass cartoon
It takes several months for
that other side of Nee to rear its
ugly head. It was the side you
heard by word-of-mouth, the side
that occasionally got reported
when he turned into Naughty
Danny at a post-game press con
ference.
Once, in response to ques
tions about the Huskers’ weak
non-conference schedule, he
called Nebraska’s non-confer
ence opponents “a bunch of cock
suckers." Understand that Danny
enjoyed their, er, cocksuckerish
ness., which resulted in 30-point
wins for his team. He just didn’t
enjoy reporters asking about the
relative weakness of teams like
Delaware St
This was the conundrum that
Danny faced - he liked reporters.
He loved reporters. He needed
reporters, for they were his audi
ence. Yet, when faced with nega
tive press from those same
reporters, diplomacy often wasn’t
Nee’s strong suit The guy simply
couldn’t hold his tongue.
Which brings us to the first
time yours truly had to interview
Nee after a Daily Nebraskan car
toon depicted him, quite literally,
as a horse's ass. Honestly- Danny
Nee on the left, a picture of a
horse’s posterior on the right, the
text “Coincidence?" at the bot
tom.
Thanks, Neal.
When I approached Nee that
day, and quietly, very quietly,
asked to talk to him about NU’s
coming game, Mount Danny
Please see NEi on 11
Cornhusker athletes nab All-American awards
NU's Benson joins midfielder Anderson on soccer first team
BY JASON MERR1HEW
NU senior defender Jenny
Benson wasn’t expecting any
phone calls from reporters three
weeks after the team’s season
ended in the third round of the
NCAA Tournament.
Then again, she didn’t expect
to be named an All American.
Benson hadn’t received the news
that she and her teammate
Meghan Anderson were named
to die National Soccer Coaches
Association of America first
team until the phone call came
in.
"This is crazy,” Benson said.
“It’s a total honor altogether.”
Benson leaves Nebraska with
the school’s career assists record
with 47. During the course of the
season, she was a finalist for the
Missouri Athletic Club National
Player of the Year award.
Anderson, a junior midfield
er, finished the season with 39
points on 12 goals and 15 assists,
helping her to be selected first
team All Big 12.
Sophomore forward
Christine Latham was named a
second-team All American.
Latham led the Huskers
through the Big 12 tournament
and was named the MVP of the
tourney.
In further postseason
awards, senior goalkeeper
Karina LeBlanc along with soph
omore defender Breanna Boyd,
joined Benson, Anderson and
Latham on the NSCAA Central
Regional Team.
Polk, Raiola land on coaches'top squad
PROM STAFF REPORTS
The postseason awards kept
rolling in Thursday for a select
few Comhuskers.
Center Dominic Raiola and
middle linebacker Carlos Polk
were named to the American
Football Coaches Association
All-American first team. Raiola
was chosen as an Outland and
Lombardi award finalist, while
Polk also was named as a second
team All American by the Walter
Camp Football Foundation.
Polk, a senior co-captam
from Rockford, 111., and two
time All-Big 12 pick, led NU's
defense this year with 90 tackles
and ranks 14th in NU history
with 227 career stops.
Raiola, who was the only
junior up for the Lombardi
award, anchored an NU offense
that led the nation in rushing for
the 14th time in school history.
The 6-foot-2 junior from
Honolulu broke his own school
record with 145 pancake blocks
in 2000.
DN Rle Photo
The Nebraska volleyball team will again take the Coliseum court this weekend for the third and fourth rounds of the NCAA Volleyball Tournament With wins against Ohio State
on Friday and in the regional finals Saturday against Arizona or BYU,the Huskers would advance to the Final Four.
Stretch run fbrtitle upon NU
The volleyball team is two wins from the Final Four
BY SEAN CALLAHAN
The top-ranked Nebraska
(30-0) volleyball team will have
a pretty good idea of what
they're going to see from No. 15
Ohio State (26-6) in tonight's
regional semifinal match.
NU Coach John Cook saw
the Buckeyes’ play plenty of
times during his seven-year
tenure at Wisconsin.
The Huskers also faced OSU
during the spring exhibition
period, and Cook said he likes to
compare OSU to another team
he’s grown pretty familiar with.
“They're similar to Kansas
State,” Cook said. "They have a
setter that is very active and fast.
They set a very fast system. We
call them the K-State of the Big
Ten. That’s the analogy we've
used for our players.”
Like K-State and South
Carolina, who both took
Nebraska to five games, Ohio
State possesses a setter that may
create problems for the Husker
block.
Sophomore setter Katie
Virtue already has an impressive
resume built up in her young
career.
In high school, Virtue led the
USA national team to a gold
medal and also was a two-time
All American.
After her freshman year at
Ohio State she was named to the
Volleyball Magazine All
FreshinanTeam.
Cook said he is well aware of
the challenge Virtue presents.
“They use a good system
that’s hard to defend,” Cook
said. “The setter makes it hap
pen. She’ll fire the ball all over
the court, and they’ll come
extremely fast with their tempo.
“They have smaller players
than we do.
"So they’re going to try to
out-quick our block and out
quick our defensive tempo with
their attack.”
On the outside it would be
easy to think Virtue has been the
heart and soul of the Buckeyes
this season.
But OSU Coach Jim Stone
said it’s been a struggle just to
keep his star setter healthy.
“She’s been nursing a stress
fracture since the middle of
October, so she hasn’t gone
There can be only one
A comparison of the four teams that will battle this
weekend for a spot in the Final Four.
No. 1 Nebraska (30-0)
16.41
.316
4.09
No. 5 Arizona (27-4)
17.69
.323
3.17
No. 12 BYU
(26-61
16.73
.280
3.84
No. 15 Ohio State (26-6)
.260
2.46
17.85
All statistics are from NCAA Tournament.
Hits and kills are per-game averages.
Melanie Falk/DN
through a practice since
October,” Stone said.
“She’ll play matches on
weekends and then sit and rest.
We've also held her out of three
matches, and we lost all three.
You don’t want your setter not
practicing, but that's the situa
tion we’ve been dealing with."
Nebraska is still dealing with
nearly being upset by underdog
South Carolina in the second
round of the tournament.
Cook said the Huskers know
they’re in for more of the same
this weekend.
“When you get to this point
everybody’s balanced, every
body’s got great hitters, every
body’s got a great setter, and
they're obviously going to be
physical enough to match up,”
Cook said. “You've got to bring
your A game if you want to come
out.”
All-American Meendering sits while No. 1NUsoars
‘To come back into
that, to get a starting
position, someone
would have to lose
one, and that twists
the chemistry a little
more, because now
you’ve got some
players on edge going
‘am I going to lose my
spot.’ That would’ve
harmed our team.”
Nancy Meendering
Nebraska volleyball player on
her decision to redshirt in 2000
BY JOHN GASKINS
It was a defining moment of this so-far
perfect Nebraska volleyball season.
Oct. 17: United Spirit Arena in
Lubbock, Texas. The Huskers came into
their match at Texas Tech 16-0, ranked No.
1 in the nation. Until that day, NU hadn’t
lost a game in over a month.
But Tech, behind a raucous crowd,
slammecTS&ne a statement-making 15-12
defeat of NU in game two to tie the match
up. The Red Raiders headed to the locker
room acting like assassins. In the Huskers’
locker room, the mood was frustration.
Coach John Cook gave a fiery speech,
begging his players to start playing
Nebraska volleyball again.
The team charged out of the locker
room and onto the court together, chanti
ng “Go Big Red” in unison. They looked like
a team on a mission.
Far, far behind their inspired, galloping
charge followed their best player, Nancy
Meendering, 1
the court... in
fectly subdued
And that’s
sat on the ben
watched her te
all she’s been a
- watch (or lis
doesn’t travel t
30 times.
What irony
One of the
an elite prograj
just watching
national cham
perfect season
attacks, zero 1
plays for one tl
“I’ll be reall
be really hard 1
“With any ath
Please see MEENDERING on 11
lonchalantly walking onto
street clothes... acting per
... like a bystander,
what Meendering was. She
ch, did some cheering and
am storm back to win. That’s
ble to do all year in matches
ten to the road games she
a on the radio). She’s done it
alite players in the history of
n, in the prime of her career,
as her team charges to the
pionship. If they pull off that
she will have recorded zero
dlls, zero blocks and zero
te program’s best teams.
y excited for them, but it will
o watch,” Meendering said,
lete, you want to be in the
Nancy Meendering,the 1999 Big 12 volleyball Player of the
Year, hasn't seen the floor for NU in 2000. She redshirted this
season, and the Huskers have responded with a 30-0 record.
NU seeks
Classic
trophy
■ Huskers don't want to lose
the home tournament again.
BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON
It just isn’t a pleasant thing to
lose a tournament played in
your own back yard.
Just ask any Nebraska bas
ketball player about it, and he
can tell you the sad tale.
“We had a disappointment
in last year's tournament, and I
think a lot of people have that in
the back of their mind,”
Nebraska junior guard Cary
Cochran said.
Last years tournament, pre
viously known as the Ameritas
Classic, found the Comhuskers’
playing in the consolation game
on Saturday after being knocked
off by Western Carolina in the
opener.
This year the tournament
sports a new title - the Husker
Team Classic - and the
Comhuskers are sporting their
most serious game faces.
“I expect nothing less than
to come out and play well two
nights in a row,” Cochran said.
The 2-2 Huskers begin the
two-day, four-team clash with a
6:30 tip-off tonight against 3-4
Missouri-Kansas City.
Alaska-Fairbanks takes on
Pacific immediately after
Nebraska plays, and the conso
lation and championship games
follow on Saturday.
Nebraska Coach Barry
Collier wants to make sure his
team doesn’t get whisked into
Saturday’s consolation game
again this year.
“Our focus has been on
UMKC and preparing for them
rather than looking at this thing
as a two-day affair/ Collier said.
UMKC’s defense, Collier
said, will present his team an
interesting challenge.
Kangaroos first-year Coach
Dean Demopoulous are former
ly an assistant at Temple
University, and he has installed
the same zone package that has
brought the Owls success.
“That’s where all my atten
tion has been this week,” Collier
said.
However, if things do work
out, a Nebraska-Pacific show
down could be in the works for
Saturday. The California school
features four players from
Nebraska.
Please see CLASSIC on 11