Unnecessary Roughness

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

OWH

 

Unnecessary Roughness: Coaches' kids also targets of frustrated NU fans' ire

BY MITCH SHERMAN

WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

 

LINCOLN — Nebraska football coach Bill Callahan and six of his nine full-time assistants have a total of 12 children enrolled in Lincoln's public and parochial schools.

 

Some of the more public behavior has involved Lincoln Southwest, where sons of beleaguered Nebraska defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove and cornerbacks coach Phil Elmassian played this fall as juniors on the football team.

 

On Oct. 12, as Southwest played Lincoln East at Seacrest Field, East students reacted to the announcement of Connor Cosgrove's name by launching a "Fire Cosgrove" chant.

 

The students were quickly reined in. Lincoln East's athletic director and coach later apologized to Southwest officials.

 

School administrators have sought to short-circuit problems, but it's impossible to eliminate them entirely, said Rob Slauson, Southwest's principal.

 

"We want to have an environment that is emotionally safe and physically safe," said Slauson, whose son Matt starts on the offensive line for NU.

 

Even at home, the children of coaches are not safe from criticism.

 

"Never in my life have I experienced this," said Kevin Cosgrove, who started coaching in 1980 and spent 13 years at Wisconsin before coming to Nebraska. "I don't think it should come with the territory. I don't think kids should be getting phone calls and text messages and things like that. I don't think that's right.

 

"These are supposed to be true fans? Really?"

 

Southwest football coach Mark King said he has not witnessed an incident at school.

 

"But I've seen the hurt," King said. "Words sometimes do hurt more than you think. It can be hard when your father's a public figure."

 

Callahan, whose two daughters attend Pius X High in Lincoln, said he wants to emphasize that most people have acted respectfully.

 

When situations turn ugly, the fourth-year head coach said, the experience serves as a "learning process" for the coaches and their families.

 

"Unless you've walked in someone else's shoes, you really don't know what they're going through," Callahan said. "It's easy to criticize, but when you're in the arena and you're trying the best you can and you're battling, it hurts. It hurts everybody in your family."

 

Most troubling, said Tim Cassidy, Nebraska's chief football administrator, is the criticism voiced at home by parents and then repeated at school by their children.

 

Cassidy, whose daughter attends Southwest and whose son, Austin, started at quarterback as a senior for the Silver Hawks last year, said the criticism isn't indicative of the state. He said poor treatment from a few gets a lot of notice.

 

"But I can also tell you that we've got a lot of people who write us to say they're thinking of us," he said.

 

All of this is nothing new. Former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne said that until he retired in 1997, his wife, Nancy, had kept from him the details of the abuse directed at their children during rough periods of his 25-year tenure.

 

None of that makes it any more acceptable, said Slauson, the Southwest principal.

 

Slauson said he checks occasionally with the children of NU coaches to ensure that they feel comfortable.

 

Southwest, in fact, offers something of a comfort zone, with the children of Cosgrove, Elmassian, Cassidy, Nebraska baseball coach Mike Anderson and athletic administrator Dennis Leblanc.

 

"They hang together," Cassidy said. "They support each other. Kids are resilient. They'll bounce back. They're going to move on, grow from this, and hopefully learn how not to sometimes act."

 

[Overland Park Husker]

Sad

[huskerchick]

that is crazy people need to leave these kids alone they are not the coaches an they did not ask to be part of this, you are not a true husker fan if you make childrens like crazy as if it is not hard enough being a kid in schoool.

[huskernation20]

Thats dispicable!

[DaveH]

Just another reason why Nebraska fans aren't "the greatest fans in college football". They are pretty average IMO.

[indianahusker]

This is a sad day for NU...coaches, players, and fans alike.

This group of coaches isn't very good. They are pretty good people though. I saw that first hand at NU FB camp when my son went. They are all good guys. I wish it would have worked out for them, I really do.

[Dan_F_30]

Just another reason why Nebraska fans aren't "the greatest fans in college football". They are pretty average IMO.

It's sad to say but i have to agree 100%. It used to be that our fans wouldn't pull this crap, now we are like everyone else...I think that's the GREATEST downfall of this program...

[Husker_x]

Just another reason why Nebraska fans aren't "the greatest fans in college football". They are pretty average IMO.

 

And this is yet another example of your inability to think with any kind of context. No offense, DaveH, but you're like a damn woman. Every time you hear one little bad thing about a fanbase which probably numbers in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, you act as though it is representative of the whole. I know it's difficult, but please, for me, attempt this little exercise.

 

Take a piece of paper, and on the bottom left-hand corner draw a little box––two of your one-inch drawn lines will comprise two sides, and the edges of the paper will be the other two. Now, in that little box, write the following: "Offensive Minority Sect of Nebraska Football." Now, somewhere else on the page in the open white space, write "Majority of Fanbase."

 

This will serve you in life as a visual tool of the realities of Husker football, and perhaps even outside scenarios. For instance, simply because I hear of a gangland shooting in Chicago, I do not automatically assume that all Chicagoans are gangsters or that the character of Chicago in general is poor, or as you lackadaisically put it, "meh." Of course it could be that this is the case for Chicago, but a few gangland stories are not enough evidence to support my claim. In our case this is also true, seeing as Callahan himself is quoted as saying that most of their encounters are positive and respectful. Not to mention there is a great outrage about this from the majority of Husker fans, myself included, who are, as we all know, the classiest fans in the nation.

 

Now please, keep your nonsense to yourself.

 

X

[dman22]

Just another reason why Nebraska fans aren't "the greatest fans in college football". They are pretty average IMO.

 

I wouldn't say we are the worst fans by any means, but I agree we are definately not the greatest. Yes, we aren't Colorado and throwing crap at opposing fans, but we still take this whole thing way to seriously.

 

Unfortunately high school kid's are pricks, this is just bound to happen. Pretty sad...

[huskernumerouno]

I am sure that most of it comes from kids their own age but that does not make it righ. If there are any adult ass wipes doing this crap they should be flogged.

 

Leave the families out of this, if you have children advise them of how wrong this is.

[HuskerTrucker]

there is no excuses for messing with their or their families personal lives...no matter what you think of them professionally, you don't make it personal. We should also be teaching our kids that also.

[DaveH]

Just another reason why Nebraska fans aren't "the greatest fans in college football". They are pretty average IMO.

 

And this is yet another example of your inability to think with any kind of context. No offense, DaveH, but you're like a damn woman. Every time you hear one little bad thing about a fanbase which probably numbers in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, you act as though it is representative of the whole. I know it's difficult, but please, for me, attempt this little exercise.

 

Take a piece of paper, and on the bottom left-hand corner draw a little box––two of your one-inch drawn lines will comprise two sides, and the edges of the paper will be the other two. Now, in that little box, write the following: "Offensive Minority Sect of Nebraska Football." Now, somewhere else on the page in the open white space, write "Majority of Fanbase."

 

This will serve you in life as a visual tool of the realities of Husker football, and perhaps even outside scenarios. For instance, simply because I hear of a gangland shooting in Chicago, I do not automatically assume that all Chicagoans are gangsters or that the character of Chicago in general is poor, or as you lackadaisically put it, "meh." Of course it could be that this is the case for Chicago, but a few gangland stories are not enough evidence to support my claim. In our case this is also true, seeing as Callahan himself is quoted as saying that most of their encounters are positive and respectful. Not to mention there is a great outrage about this from the majority of Husker fans, myself included, who are, as we all know, the classiest fans in the nation.

 

Now please, keep your nonsense to yourself.

 

X

Hey,

Listen up bud.

 

You wanna know what my point of posting that was? The fact that actions like the ones described in the article are those of a fan base that has a very normal distribution. A lot of really good people and some pricks. People like to say that NU fans are "the best". That means to me that there are actually a very small amount of pricks that RARELY show up. Now, my definition of rarely is.

 

A) Not badgering players on the bench AT THE DAMN GAME. Where the whole reason you are there is to support the team, not tear them down.

B) Not harassing coaches families. No matter what happens. That's f'ing Busch league and is NOT a trait of "the greatest fans in college football".

 

Those are just examples of the bullsh#t that NU fan's, if they were the "greatest in college football" wouldn't think about doing. Even the pricks. Because this sh#t shows up regularly when the team goes through rough times, tells me that like many, MANY other schools NU has a very normal distribution of fans.

 

That's why, to me, NU fan's are more like any other fan. A lot of good people, a fair amount of pricks. Sure they aren't awful like CU, but as a whole I don't think they are all they are cracked up to be.

 

Now, please, don't tell anyone to keep their nonsense to themselves. If you do, the board will force you to keep your nonsense to yourself.

[808Husker in KCMO]

E-FIGHT!!!!!

[T_O_Bull]

 

As adults and parents we have to be aware that what we say in front of our children will be taken in and possibly repeated. Kids all too often grow up in their parents image and have many of their parents opinions. In times like these discretion is the greater part of valor.

 

Anyone, adult, teenager or adolecent who engages in directing abusive conduct directed towards coaches, players or their families is a stone cold jerk and the rest of us should stand up and tell them to shut their crap filled mouths.

 

...T_O_B

 

[knapplc]

Dave, I don't want to get into it with you, but your understanding of what makes fans “great” is... wrong. By your statement it can easily be construed that NO COLLEGE TEAM ANYWHERE has good fans, and that they are in fact all bad.

 

There isn’t a single team in this country whose fan base doesn’t include the kinds of people you describe. What makes one team’s fans “better” than another team’s fans is the frequency with which those actions take place. At Nebraska, they are by FAR the minority of actions.

 

The whole “best college football fans in the country” label is a joke. We’re great fans, but there is no non-subjective standard by which this can be measured. It’s been around for a while, and by and large Nebraska Fans show that they fall somewhere around that description, so it’s stuck for some time.

 

But today it’s being used as a cudgel against us because some fools out there do stupid things. Despite the fact that the vast majority of us loathe the very thought of picking on the children of a coach, there are idiots out there whose boundaries of Right and Wrong allow them to behave this way. Those folks can go to a store and buy Husker gear just like any of the rest of us, and they can get tickets to a game just like the rest of us. That doesn’t make them just like the rest of us, though.

 

What strikes me as terribly odd about your assertion that Husker Fans are NOT the best in the nation is that you call yourself a Husker Fan. You’re essentially saying that your association with those kinds of fools negates YOUR level of fandom. How in the world does that make sense to you? Are you saying that you’re just like the guys who threaten Cosgrove’s kids? If so, WHY? If not, how is it so difficult for you to realize that we abhor those actions (much like I assume you do?) and we, the Husker Fans as a whole, ARE NOT responsible for those actions?

 

There is no freaking way I am associated IN ANY WAY with anyone who would ever think it’s OK to say the things this article says were said to Cosgrove’s family. They have nothing to do with me, or with any Husker Fans I know. If you want to associate yourself with them, Dave, I would seriously suggest you reevaluate your loyalties.