Booster Speaks

eoltmer · October 15, 2007

Future of NU brass up in air

By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star

Sunday, Oct 14, 2007 - 11:58:25 pm CDT

Sure, Dale Jensen had a few minutes to talk Nebraska football. Got a half hour?

Never mind that it was hours before his Arizona Diamondbacks were to play Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday. Jensen had his Huskers on the mind.

He painfully listened to Saturday’s game, a 45-14 Husker home loss to Oklahoma State, a day Jensen considers the program’s lowest in modern history.

“At halftime, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, just don’t let this thing get into the 60s,’” Jensen said.

A Lincoln native and one-time University of Nebraska-Lincoln student, Jensen made himself worth hundreds of millions of dollars as a bank computer software mogul, big enough that he’s now part of a four-man partnership that owns the Diamondbacks.

Big enough that he’s given millions to UNL. Big enough that when he says he’s had it with that university’s athletic director and football coach, you pay attention.

“The general consensus from everybody I’ve talked to is that (Bill) Callahan and (Steve) Pederson both have to go,” Jensen said.

And if they don’t go, would he keep sending money to the athletic department?

“Right now, today, if someone came to me (asking for money) and I knew the current leadership was going to be there, probably not,” he said. “Not even probably. I get to vote with my pocketbook and that’s the only vote I have.”

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2007/1...8d572195515.txt

Alex 4.0 · October 15, 2007

YES... :horns2

What is more exciting than recruiting....

getting a new regime to use the players we have recruited.

The next week or two is going to be VERY interesting....

huskernumerouno · October 15, 2007

Here is the rest of it, I was just about to post the entire article when yours popped up

Jensen said he doesn’t know of any coordinated effort afoot by big donors to try to inflict changes on the athletic department.

But he does hear plenty of unpleasant talk after an embarrassing seven-game start to this Husker football season. Losses by 18, 35 and 31 points have left many red-faced and asking for dismissals.

Much of the disgruntled voices don’t want to just get rid of coach Bill Callahan, but also of the man who hired him, athletic director Steve Pederson.

“I don’t have a bone to pick with anybody. I just know what’s happening, and it’s not good,” Jensen said. “I’m a Nebraskan and Nebraska football became the largest single point of pride for many Nebraskans that never even had anything to do with the university. Well, that pride isn’t there now.”

Insert another opinion, this one from Dan Cook, another guy with a lot of money, a 72-year-old and prominent Husker booster.

“Don’t panic in a decision like this. This has profound changes if you make some quick move,” Cook said Sunday. “And what message does it send to other people that you may want to hire? If you fire a coach or something like that, what’s the next coach think: ‘Every time they lose a game, they’re going to want to hang me.’”

Though he called Saturday “a sad, sad day for Nebraska,” he thinks he’d give Callahan and Pederson at least one more year.

“Steve Pederson is a friend of mine. I will say that straight out,” Cook said. “But I will say … if you don’t deliver, there is a time when you pull a plug. I don’t think this is the time to pull the plug on either of those guys.”

But if the plug were to get pulled on Pederson, who’s doing the pulling?

According to University of Nebraska Board of Regents members Randy Ferlic, Kent Schroeder and Chuck Wilson, such a decision is reserved for Chancellor Harvey Perlman.

“In this case, Perlman has the management decision in his hands,” Ferlic said. “The regents could interfere, but I think it’s highly doubtful.”

Perlman could not be reached Sunday and did not return a message left on his home phone.

Ferlic said no regents meetings have been held to discuss the state of the football program, nor were any scheduled.

“I just get the same e-mails everyone gets (from fans), 100 a day,” he said. “They’re all saying roughly the same thing.”

Wilson, the regents chairman, said he had received a couple hundred e-mails over the weekend “lamenting the sad state of things.”

Such is the gloom that has overcome Husker football.

By the final minutes of Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State, half the stadium was empty. Callahan heard angry shouts from fans as he left the field, and even worse things were being written by the anonymous on message boards in the day that followed.

Cook thinks the negativity has almost reached the point of absurd.

“I think there are people in this state who really want to see this thing fail, and if enough people want to see things fail, it’ll fail,” Cook said. “And the consequences of it are enormous to Nebraska.”

Jay Noddle, a booster out of Omaha, said the results on the field have been troubling, but hoped decisions of potential changes would not be made rashly.

“To rush to a decision and make major changes and so on and so forth may seem like the right thing to do at this moment, but could do more harm than good,” Noddle said.

He had a hard time watching Saturday’s game, not just what happened on the field but also the environment that surrounded it.

“It’s sort of shocking. It’s sad,” he said. “I don’t think it’s indicative at all of the spirit of Nebraska. We got to go get that back.”

Noddle does not think big boosters will influence any change so much as Nebraskans at large.

Cook also downplayed the role of the boosters, saying the people who shoot off their mouths the most often give the least to the program.

“You’d be stunned at the number of people who are the loudest talkers who do nothing for that program except sit back and bitch and carp,” Cook said.

He said he would not pull back on the donations he gives despite the recent struggles.

Some former Husker players have been less accepting.

There was one invitation sent to former Husker letterwinners Saturday night inviting them to a Wednesday meeting where they could have an “open and candid discussion on the direction of the Nebraska football program.”

Jensen said he knows of many people in Nebraska’s N Club, made up of former Husker letterwinners, who “feel alienated” from the current program. This started soon after Pederson arrived as AD, he said.

“I’m not going to name names, but trust me, these are people with household names and they are incredibly upset,” Jensen said.

“It’s one thing when the program is going through a down time, but when you feel betrayed, you were loyal all these years, and these guys are N Club members feeling that. There’s too many of them for somebody to just dismiss it.”

Jensen wanted to stress that he’s not blaming the current players. He thinks Nebraska’s athletes are as good as anyone’s out there.

“I don’t blame the kids at all,” he said. “The problem comes from leadership. That’s where it all starts. It starts with leadership, and that leadership is as far up the flagpole as you want to go.”

kansas husker · October 15, 2007

These are the people who we need talking to make changes happen. Just wish he had thrown cos under the bus as well.

huskernumerouno · October 15, 2007

As long as the very large boosters are talking and being quoted in the papers the regents will be listening. They understand the ramifications will be if they contiue to watch this slide and do nothing.

foote_21 · October 15, 2007