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Nebraska to Beijing, China
The distance between Elkhorn, NE and Beijing, China is 6470.5556 miles but all it took Alice Schmidt was 800 meters in 2:00.46. Alice qualified tonight for the Olympics in the 800m after placing 2nd in the Olympic Trials. Alice is a graduate of Elkhorn High School in western Omaha and holds the girls all class state record in the 800m with a time of 2:12. She had an outstanding career at Elkhorn (part of 3 state track championships and 4x 800 meter winner) and North Carolina and now will run on the worlds biggest stage.
As a Elkhorn Antler alum and someone who has a younger brother who graduated and ran with Alice in high school, I am absolutely ecstatic about this. Alice is an absolutely outstanding athlete, student and person. Congrats Alice and go for the gold!
The CWS has gone to the dawgs
Fresno State that is. In one of the most amazing runs in NCAA sports history, Fresno State the #4 seed in the Long Beach State regional, defied all odds and won the College World Series.
This could quite possibly be one of the most amazing runs in college sports history.
The first #4 seeded team to ever reach the CWS.
The first team ever rated lower than #48 (in a 64 team field) to make it to an NCAA final.
Only the second national title in school history (softball in 1998)
Tied the record for most runs in a CWS (61)
Most losses by a CWS winner (31)
To put this in perspective, there are 16 #4 seeds in a regional. So technically these are the 16 lowest rated teams in the tournament. If you want to compare this to the Big Dance...its like 13 seed OR LOWER winning the NCAA tournament. George Mason was an 11 seed in the 2006 tournament. And they only made it to the national semifinals.
In my opinion I thought there would be no winner more unlikely than Oregon State the past two years but this trumps it ten fold.
Simply amazing
There are no more words folks. We are watching the greatest player in the sport of golf...ever. And we could be watching one of if not the greatest athlete of all time.
What this guy has done this weekend is absolutely amazing.
The 18 hole playoff is tomorrow.
Baseball live bloggin
So I think I’m gonna live blog the rest of Nebraska’s games in the regional.
Putting the fun in fundraising
I thought this blog by Brian Christopherson in the Life in the Red LJS blog was an interesting one. He asked Paul Meyers how fundraising was going in a “lean” economy. Paul said it was going good, I don’t know if I exactly believe him. What is he supposed to say? “Its going awful, we can’t afford to pay the light bill”
Anyway, thats not the point of my blog. In the blog, there is a list of things that TO wants:
-New academic center
-Hall of fame building
-Practice facility that would accompany the new downtown basketball arena.
IMO, the priority needs to be the new practice facility. If Nebraska ever wants to prove that they take basketball seriously, they need a practice facility. Nebraska is the only Big 12 school that does not have plans, building or currently have practice facilities for their basketball teams. While the academic center is all well and good, I’m guessing that could be put on the back burner. And while a Hall of fame building would be cool, its a tad frivolous at this point when there are more pressing needs.
What should the donation dollars go to first?
What a weekend
It is a rare occasion that a sporting event lives up to the pregame hype. USC/Nebraska, is usually the norm.
But this weekend, 3 fantastic games occurred at Haymarket Park over the weekend. Texas A&M and Nebraska took to the field in a 1 vs. 2 matchup in the Big 12 standings and both were top 10 teams in the rankings. If there has been a team with more magic than Nebraska this year it has been the Aggies of A&M. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard scores from the nation and Texas A&M’s scores always start with “Texas A&M comes from behind to defeat ____”
Friday nights matchup was almost good enough for two complete games because it went 16 innings. The Aggies were the victor 6-3. And were a virtual lock for the Big 12 regular season crown.
Saturday’s matchup was washed out by rain which set up a fantastic Mothers Day.
Game 1 on Sunday was mostly all Texas A&M but Nebraska scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning to collect the victory 9-8.
Game 2 on Sunday was a slugfest but Nebraska had to come from behind again, this time 5 runs down going into the bottom of the 6th inning. Nebraska scored 3 runs in the 6th, 7th AND 8th inning and came out on top 13-10.
It is rare in a 3 game series where the outcome of any of the 3 games could have gone either way. Nebraska could have very easily gone 3-0 but so could have Texas A&M.
Before this weekend Nebraska was pretty much assured hosting a regional. Nebraska was also in contention with about 12 teams for a coveted top 8 national seed and a home road to the College World Series. This weekends series win probably gave Nebraska one of those top 8 national seeds save a collapse at Missouri and the Big 12 tournament.
Did anybody take in either of the 3 games?
Sports, Arenas and Stadiums…oh my!
It was quite a busy day in terms of the location of sporting events in the state of Nebraska. We’ll hit the local flavor first.
-The first video of the potential Haymarket Arena and surrounding area was released today. The architecture gig went to DLR Group of Omaha instead of Lincoln Traction Partners, a Kansas City based business. LTP was in on the ground floor of the initial Haymarket Arena ideas but DLR was in the favor or the Mayor. The LJS article outlines why the DLR decision is a bit of a puzzling one. Because besides the Qwest, DLR manly deals in baseball stadiums. The video, though, looks good. I think its a nice looking arena. There’s a large group of windows and it has a bit of a barn feel which I think would go well downtown. And when I first saw it, it kind of reminded me of Assembly Hall at the University of Indiana. Of course the arena is all on the premise that voters approve the arena in a vote next year.
-The second piece of news was the securing of the College World Series by Omaha. The NCAA granted, get this, a 20 year contract to keep the CWS in Omaha. The current deal expires in 2010 and this new deal will keep the Series in Omaha until 2030. I am amazed that the city of Omaha was able to secure that long of a contract. As it says in the article, the NCAA doesn’t grant 5 year contracts, much less a 20 year contract. I know it was the goal of the Mayor and CWS Inc. but its still amazing. A preliminary video was released a couple of weeks ago. This probably is the death blow for Rosenblatt supporters and the stadiums days are numbered. I suggest if you haven’t been to the World Series at Rosenblatt, please do yourself a favor and go see a game or two. And with the huskers tearing it up, this year might be the last year to see the Huskers at the blatt.
90 DOLLARS?! FOR A SCRIMMAGE!?
That’s right folks, Nebraska has just went from weird to crazy. Fans are actually paying 90 dollars to watch this Saturday’s spring game.
Honestly, this is way to far. Its just a practice game. I won’t spend 90 bucks to watch ANY Nebraska home game. What is the interest here?
I just don’t get it.
Rock, Chalk, Championship
The Kansas Jayhawks defeated the Memphis Tigers 75-68 in overtime last night to give them their first national championship since 1988 and Danny and the Miracles.
Nebraska, as a state, has hosted an NCAA tournament game 5 times in the history of the tournament. 4 of the 5 years, the tournament winner has played in Nebraska.
Great game last night.
Who can listen to that garbage?
Now that the basketball season is over, I need to get something off my chest…
Kent Pavelka needs to go.
Having had to listen to him on the internet was absolutely painful this season. He’s WAY past his prime. (He really wasn’t all that good to begin with) THAT’S RIGHT...I SAID IT!
The Husker Sports Network’s hand was forced to let go Randy and bring in Kent, another Steve Pederson flub. And it was absolutely the worst decision.
Kent whines, Kent complains, Kent is a homer. Hey Kent, here’s an idea...listen to Greg Sharpe. You’ll pick up more in one game from Sharpe than you’ll ever learn in a lifetime of broadcasting.
:rantover
P.S. I realize this might have been more effective DURING basketball season...but, oh well.
Americas Past time
Today is opening day for major league baseball (we’re not counting abomination of a PR stunt that MLB did)
The Red Sox are the new evil empire.
The Royals have Alex Gordon for his 2nd full season (and he hit a home run today in a come from behind win over the Detroit Tigers) but they’ll still be bad.
My Minnesota Twins traded the best pitcher in the game (Johan Santana) and got a bunch of no names (but once again, the Twins will come out on top) The Twins are in a tough division, so they weren’t going to do that well anyway. I predict 3rd.
The national league...well...the cubs still haven’t won. 100th anniversary of their last world series win.
But the real story around here is the Nebraska Cornhusker baseball team.
7-1-1 in the Big 12 and 21-4-1 overall.
A series win over Texas this past weekend was the first real test for the huskers and they passed with flying colors. A drubbing of Texas in the 1st game and a solid solid 2-0 victory in game 2 over shadowed Texas’ win in game 3.
The big red are playing very well right now and it seems that we might have underestimated them. It wasn’t hard to underestimate them though, with all their off the field problems and their seeming ability to fold down the stretch in seasons past.
The huskers face Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Kansas in their next 3 series. All 3 are very winnable.
NU Newz
-The Husker women qualified for the NCAA tournament as a #8 seed. They’ll play #9 seed Xavier on Easter Sunday. If they do win they’ll most likely play Maryland, one of the 4 #1 seeds. I’m thinking NU exercises their tourney daemons from last year (losing the 8/9 matchup) and gets the W. It’ll end there though...unless Maryland is upset by the #16 seed Coppin State on their home floor. (Drop a little trivia for ya here, while no mens #16 seed has won a game in the big dance...one #16 team has won a womens tournament game. Answer inside.)
-The Husker men picked up a #3 seed in the NIT tournament and will play Charlotte on Wednesday. I can really see the Huskers going all the way to New York, and if they get some breaks there way, maybe win it all.
-The football team is getting in a bit of trouble off the field in Bo Pelini’s first year. Andy Christiansen the big one. This needs to be put to an end quickly. Spring practice is about to begin. Wake me up when the real season starts
-The baseball team, mired in several off the field incidents, has played VERY well so far this year. The team traveled to Stanford to start out the year and came back 1-2. And now they have reeled off 14 straight. It hasn’t exactly been against the best competition. But the huskers have picked up a 3 game sweep against Kansas State to open up big 12 play and got one today against Arkansas. Against the modern day father of Nebraska baseball, Dave Van Horn who made his first return to Nebraska since leaving the program he built.
Where do we put these damn kids?
Looks like Tom Osborne has made his first tough decision of his Athletic Department tenure. (no, firing Bill Callahan and hiring Bo Pelini were not tough nor unexpected)
T.O. has decided to change the placement of the students in South Stadium. He’s sliding the students up and giving everybody up top the bottom seats. It was detailed in the DN (Daily Nebraskan) Tuesday.
Osborne stated the reason the change was made was because “students have a tendency to stand on their seats throughout the game, and it wasn’t fair for the season ticket holders who sat behind them.” “We’re doing what we can to be fair,” Osborne said. “But I just have to tell you, people who buy a ticket are entitled to see a game, so it wasn’t happening. That’s why this move has been made.”
Is it just me, or is it a really bad idea to move the students AWAY from the field? Nebraska already has one of the poorest student football seating in the Big 12. I know for a fact that Missouri, Kansas St., Iowa State, and Kansas have much better seating for students than Nebraska does. It was my understanding that Nebraska students once sat at the 50 yard line in East Stadium, now while I’m not condoning that they go back to that because I understand there is money to be made and those seats are money seats, but to move the students farther back into an even worse position? Are we on a slippery slope here were the students might eventually get shut out?
I also find the complaint of the people behind the students that they were standing up the whole game very laughable as well. I have been to many a football game and every other play there are people standing before a play or during a play which causes a ripple effect behind them. Hell, I’d say half of a good game at Memorial is spent standing up and sitting down. If you’re not willing to stand up at a football game, then don’t go. Watch it at home.
Now, I’m of the younger generation and the blue hairs are going to win out every time because they got what counts most...the green. But am I way off basis here?
What’s in a nickname?
I like to think of myself as someone who is pretty easy going guy. Someone who can run with the punches, someone who takes things as he sees them. I don’t really cause a ripple in the grand scheme things, I just stay in the background.
I do have one pet peeve though, wait no, its not a pet peeve, its down right irritation. School nicknames. Particularly ones that change the mascot to a different gender and change the name for the girls. In other words, its a different “mascot” for a the girls than the guys. Take for instance the argument that I had just this morning. The Perkins County girls are the #1 team in Class C2, undefeated and barring a major upset, they will will the C2 title. Their school nickname is the “Plainsmen.” Someone told me that they are called the Plainswomen. First off they’re wrong, because the school is registered with the NSAA as Plainsmen for both genders. But second, why are the girls not good enough to get the Plainsmen nickname? Why do they have to get a different nickname than the boys?
Other examples throughout the state:
Axtell Wildcats call their girls the Lady Cats.
Beatrice Orangemen call their girls the Lady Orange.
Hastings St. Cecilia Bluehawks call their girls the Hawkettes
Sidney Red Raiders call their girls the Lady Raiders
Sutton Mustangs call their girls the Fillies
Lexington Minutemen call their girls the Minutemaids
And the worst nickname change of all:
The Columbus Lakeview Vikings call their girls...yes this is actually registered with the NSAA… the ViQueens.
And I’m almost positive that Waverly did this at one point while I was in high school.
I have a little bit less irritation, but still a irritation, for those schools that put “lady” in front of the nickname but don’t change the original name. (Lady Irish, Lady Bulldogs, Lady Warriors)
This changing of the nicknames irritates the hell out of me and it really needs to stop. Its very sexist, and, to me at least, it sends the message that the girls aren’t good enough for the nickname of the high school they go to.
Sorry, soapbox rant over.
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