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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 6, 2001)
SportsTuesday In need of more than Title IX My par ents got the 1960s. Now I’m not sure they did a whole lot with it except live uirougn u ana q have my two .. „ brothers, but ^JCKewon they had it I got 2001. So there are not too many social phenomenas zipping across the airwaves. Not even a war to exploit cinematically in a decade. Our movements are pret ty much washed up. But this being Women’s Week, I figured an upgrade to "cultural thing” - one notch below phe nomenon - was in order for Title IX, roughly 29 years old. It spreads to many fields outside of women’s sports, but because sports enrap ture our attention the way an emergency room or an advertis ing office cannot, Title IX is best known for its benefits to female athletes. Baby, it’s come a long way, this law. Now, I know all about the law. I’ve read the polic\' interpretations and Department of Labor stance. Seen the original law. Read about the added stipulation in 1975. Understand that none of it really took hold until 1991, when a cou ple of lawyers helped female ath letes sue Brown University and win. You want to credit the law? Credit the lawyers - the Thurgood Marshalls of women’s sports. Legislation intact, and in agreement that such a movement in women’s sports is a good thing, we move on to the fun stuff 10 years later - interpreting the law, measuring it, asking the question - just how do we approach this new blessing? We saw how nicely a job the pundits did with school desegre gation - Dubya has to tout super school vouchers to try and solve it. In Cleveland, through voting referendum, they built Jacobs Field before renovating schools. No, as much as we’d like to sit back and bask in the glow of women’s athletics, it has to be worked and shaped, lest it turn into something that resembles the ugliness of men’s modem ath letics, where shoe companies buy 15-year-olds gold watches in hopes that they’ll play profession al basketball someday and sign big contracts. We, the society or those who love sports, have a do-over. Five ways to get it right this time: ■ Reject the mainstream. Therein lies the loss of sport’s autonomy, the minute it agrees television ratings are more impor tant than the makeup. Women’s sports has a better chance if it concentrates on its built-in audience: women, girls and people who appreciate the game without bells and whistles. If that means living on the cable channels, or depending on a live crowd, so be it Volleyball provides a classic example; as the sport looks to get on ESPN by eliminating the side out format, it risks alienating the integrity of the game. What's more, it favors “easy” television markets, like those that surround West Coast schools and major city markets that will inevitably get more coverage than either of the 2000 national final ists, Nebraska and Wisconsin. The moment the tube becomes a recruiting advantage is the moment NU loses some of the edge it has well earned the past 25 years. ■ Don’t market sex. Oh, what a Pandora’s Box that becomes. I know these women athletes, some of whom have spent much of their life being ignored in favor of their more “feminine” peers, love showing off their hard pecs and toned thighs. But this, again, devalues your base market of women and young girls who respond less to sex than men do. ■Throwing free tickets at fans won't work. Using a “just come see, and you’ll really like it” approach isn’t going to work, either. Not substantially and not Please see WOMEN on 11 High hopes follow Robinette to NU BY JOHN GASKINS Saturday night was bliss for Katie Robinette. The Parade All-American and Nebraska recruit knifed through defenders and grabbed rebounds, dominating the paint for one last time in high school as her South Sioux City team steamrolled to a state champi onship for the sixth time in the past seven years. She got a final standing ova tion from the Devaney Center fans, including practically her entire town, when she checked out with 26 points. She wore the net her team cut dowm in the post-victory celebration. She traded hugs and tears with fami ly and friends after doing several interviews with writers and TV crews. After all the basking, some thing she’s been used to as a star of a team that hasn’t lost five games in four years, she got a chance to walk alone across the Devaney Center hardwood she’ll play on for four more years. “It was like the beginning of the end,” Robinette said. “Even during the game, I couldn’t help but think this is where I’ll play for the next four years.” Yeah. Neither could her par ents. Neither could her town. Neither could the NU fans in attendance. And neither could NU Coach Paul Sanderford, who was prob ably the most eager onlooker of all. The state has never wit nessed this kind of talent, has never expected such great things out of a player going to her in-state program. Robinette’s night of bliss also was everyone else’s night of anticipation. As blissful as the night was, one wonders if it will ever be this blissful for Robinette again. She joins a program that had its worst season in 11 years. And as good as she is, one wonders, is Robinette ready for what’s in store for her at NU? Can her presence turn the Huskers around? “I think that’s a stretch,” South Sioux Gty s Katie Robinette, shown here at last weekend's Nebraska State High School Basketball Tournament, may be Nebraska's most heralded recruit ever. Robinette's SSC team won the Class B title on Saturday night. Robinette said. I m just one person. A team has 12 or 14 peo ple." Maybe so, but by his own admission, Sanderford’s stom ach has oeen in knots all season long, and it’d be a lot tighter if Robinette weren’t coming. Sanderford, who has led 15 Western Kentucky and NU teams to the NCAA Tournament and three WK teams to the Final Four, ached and pained on the bench all year while coaching the first losing season of his 23 year college career. But even the heartburn of a brutal 12-17 season doesn’t stack up to the flip-flops he felt in his gut while Robinette con tinued to decide between Nebraska, its next-door neigh bor and nemesis Iowa State - currently ranked No. 9 national ly - and four top-five programs (No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Connecticut, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Georgia), as her college of choice. Pepto Bismol bottles were going dry when Robinette nar rowed it to NU and ISU, who has built its program from dirt to dynasty material in five years. So imagine the sigh of relief Sanderford breathed when the state's most coveted player ever chose to stay in-state and help build a currently young and struggling program. “It was a huge one,” Sanderford said. “Probably almost too big considering what we’ve gone through this year. I never felt comfortable, really, until even after she told me she was coming. I had to read it in the paper the next day. “I was excited for our pro gram. A player of that magni tude, if she leaves the state of Nebraska, it says that you don’t have a program that’s good enough for a national-caliber player. And it’s awfully hard to ever build that program if you don’t get those players. “It doesn’t take a genius. It’s not an exact science to figure it out ... she’s going to be an impact player.” Sitting down press row from Sanderford, the media pundits, normally a cynical bunch, are raving with every Robinette move. Long-time high school beat writers Stu Pospisil from the Omaha World-Herald and Rvly Jane Hambleton from the Lincoln Journal-Star call her the best they’ve seen. KLIN broad caster Jeff Motz screams into his microphone that he’s "never seen this kind of athlete in women's basketball.” And it’s easy to see what they’re excited about - Robinette is an intimidating force, quick mover and graceful ballerina rolled into one. She can score. She can rebound. She Please see ROBINETTE on 11 Full extent of Davies injury not yet known ON File Photo Slated to start at fullback next fall, Husker sophomore-to-be Judd Davies'season is in jeopardy because of a back injury. Davies won't participate in spring practice and is considering surgery on the bulged disc. BY DAVID DIEHL Nebraska fullback Judd Davies said on Monday the lingering back injury that had recently surfaced in the news and Internet chat rooms would definitely keep him out of spring practice. As to the talk of the injury being career ending, Davies said that choice had yet to be made. The sophomore-to-be said it could come down to how much pain he could play with if the injury didn’t improve. “It's an issue if you want to keep play ing with pain,” Davies said. "If it doesn't get better do I want to keep playing with it? It’s up to me where to draw the line.” Where that line is right now, Davies wouldn’t specify'. The pain, Davies said, is not in his back, but in his right leg. A bulging disc in his lower back is pressing on a nerve and causing pain down his leg. As of now, recovery consists of total inactivity7 for at least 90 day^s. Spring prac tice is slated to begin after spring break on March 19, thus making Davies unavail able. The sophomore-to-be was expected to fill the top fullback spot, vacated by the graduated Willie Miller, a two-year starter. “It's hard, really hard,” Davies said about missing spring drills. “You feel like you’re letting a lot of people down.” Davies, a pre-med major, said that surgery remained a possibility if rest did n't do the trick. It just may, though, seeing that Husker tight end Jon Bowling went through the same problem and was healthy after a period of rest. Nebraska Coach Frank Solich said last week. Surgery. Davies said, would carry with it two months of inactivity followed by six to eight weeks of rehab to the weakened back. Said his high school Coach Fred Petito: “His back’s always been trouble some.” Heavy lifting in high school is to blame, Davies admitted, specifically Please see DAVIES on 11 High hopes for Big 12 tourney ■ After an unusual season marked by let downs, NU women's basketball shoots for improvement in the conference tournament. BY LINCOLN ARNEAL It has been an unfamiliar year for the women’s basketball team. Nebraska Coach Paul Sanderford experienced the first losing season in his long and storied coaching career. His Huskers aren’t near the upper crust of the Big 12 for the first time since Sanderford arrived in Nebraska. Many of the players, wiio come from suc cessful high school programs, have struggled with the losing season. “I have never been in this situation,” senior Amanda Went said. ‘‘But knowing (that we are in the situation), it has been hard to go in even,’ day with the attitude we're not going to give up, and we re going to keep fighting. It is not over.” The Comhuskers (12-17,4-12) will try to re-estab lish some of that old winning feeling with an opening round victory in the Big 12 Conference Tournament as they take on No. 25 Texas (7-9, 19-11) tonight in Kansas City, Mo. After four straight trips to the NCAA Tournament, Nebraska won’t make the 64-team field thjs season unless they somehow batde though one of the tough est conferences in the nation. It also marks the first time in five years NU won t finish in the top half of the league. NU enters the tour nament with the No. 10 seed and spent most of the year in the conference cellar. “We aren’t getting any thank-you or get-well cards from anybody in the Big 12,” Sanderford said. After losing the last two regular season games to Baylor and Oklahoma State, Nebraska guaranteed their first losing season since the 1994-95 season. This year also marks Sanderford's first losing sea son in his four years at Nebraska. “.Am 1 happy? No," Sanderford said. “If I am not miserable losing, I need to give my job to someone else.” With only a slim chance to make the post-season, Sanderford said he was in an unfamiliar position. “I am not used to be sitting where the tournament is the only chance (to make the NCAA Tournament),” he said. However, Sanderford isn't ruling anything out. “I've seen some funny things happen in tourna ment basketball in the last 19 years.” he said. Said Went: “The Big 12 is really wide open, any thing can happen. We can come out and play unbe lievable and have perfect games for the rest of the week, or we can (play) worse then we have all year.” The rebuilding year hasn't been an easy one for the youthful Huskers, who have 10 underclassmen on the roster. While many have made strides since the start of the year, more work needs to be done. We have made a lot of improvement, but there is room for a lot more improvement,” Sanderford said. The winner of the Nebraska-Texas game will adyance to play Texas Tech on Wednesday. Less qualifiers, but still high quality BY DIRKCHATELAIN What the Nebraska track team lacks in quantity heading into this weekend's 2001 NCAA Indoor Championships, it intends to make up for in quali ty. Ten Huskers were on the list of meet qualifiers released Monday, five each on the men's and women s side. Last year, NU qualified 15 tracksters. Women's Sprint Coach Steve Smith said the Huskers were hoping for a better representa tion at the meet, held in Fayetteville, .Ark. "I think all of us coaches would like to have more people at the meet," Smith said. The upside for NU is that several among the 10 who quali fied are considered serious medal challengers. Leading the medal charge will be 400-meters contender Lesley 0\vusu. The senior stand out, whose blistering marks have been the highlight of the indoor season, is coming off of a school-record performance in the 600 yards last Saturday. Unfortunately for Owusu, the 600 isn't a national event. But with the second fastest time in the nation at 52.37, Owusu s focus is a gold medal in the 400. She won't compete in any other event at the meet. Melissa Price, who surren dered a redshirt season to com pete in the Big 12 indoor cham pionships, will also look to make her mark in the 20-pound w-eight throw. Price’s first throw this year was the fourth best in the country. Other qualifiers on the women s side include Shelley Ann Brown in the 60 meters, Emily VVaibel in the 60-meter Please see TRACK on 11