Husker_Power
Starter
BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Aug 26, 2007 - 12:08:54 am CDT
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Nebraska senior cornerback Zackary Bowman is much like the sun in Alaska.
He’s a big, bright star, yet isn’t always able to shine.
Bowman moved to Anchorage, Alaska, when he was 15. He remembers needing to adjust to the odd hours of sunlight — or lack thereof — during certain seasons.
For instance, in Barrow, the northernmost village of Alaska, there’s no daylight, period, for 64 days in the winter.
Bowman can relate. In fact he’s gone much longer without shining. Try 603 days, and counting.
It was Dec. 29, 2005, when Bowman turned in a dominating, boy-the-future-looks-bright performance against Michigan in the Alamo Bowl.
Bowman, a junior college transfer in his first year as a Husker, blanketed Wolverine receivers, intercepted his second pass of the season and set a Husker bowl-game record with five pass breakups.
There also was the wacky final kickoff return, when Bowman assisted on the touchdown-saving tackle that ended the game … after most players, coaches, fans and media thought the game had already ended.
Bowman, beset by two knee injuries, hasn’t played since. Much like the winters in Alaska, it’s been his darkest time.
Of course, there’s the bright side, literally, to enduring those long, dark Alaskan winters.
The Alaskan summers.
Turns out, the sun does shine in Barrow … for 84 straight days in the summertime. In Anchorage, where there’s as little as 5½ hours of sunlight per day in the winter, the summer brings 24 hours of functional daylight.
“It’s crazy,” Bowman said. “It kind of throws you off guard a little bit.
“I couldn’t sleep. A lot of people think when the sun goes down, the time’s getting late. But there, when the sun stays up …”
Bowman spent much of his extra daylight time fishing, he said. It’s an activity he still enjoys in Nebraska at area ponds.
As a high school senior, Bowman remembered late-night parties in the daylight. He’d play basketball, go bowling, go-carting … all under a midnight sun.
So, is Bowman’s personal summer solstice just around the corner?
Nebraska coaches, players and fans certainly hope that’s the case.
Bowman returned to practice two weeks into Nebraska’s fall camp. When he’s able to return to game action, however, is unclear. Coach Bill Callahan has said Bowman could return by late September or early October, when Nebraska earnestly begins the Big 12 Conference portion of its schedule.
Bowman’s most recent injury was a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee in March, the second week of spring practice. It required surgery, and he’s been rehabilitating.
That came after Bowman had recovered from a torn ACL in his left knee in the first week of fall camp in 2006.
Talk about feeling like a falling star. …
Before his injuries, Bowman clocked a 4.36 time in the 40-yard dash — a Nebraska cornerback record — in January of 2006.
Whether Bowman can return with his same leaping ability and speed after a second knee surgery remains to be seen.
If he does, it could pay the Nebraska secondary huge dividends. That’s a little ironic, considering dividend checks — not the long hours of daylight — are Bowman’s favorite part of living in Alaska.
“It’s free money,” Bowman said, referring to checks Alaskan residents of at least one year receive annually. They’re from an oil rent trust fund and have been issued since 1982.
“Everybody gets one,” Bowman said, noting he’s used his dividend check — some $1,100 — to shop or go on trips.
The dividend checks, Bowman said, aren’t as well-known outside of Alaska as, say, igloos or dogsleds. They rank high, along with polar bears and penguins, as common misconceptions about Alaska, Bowman said.
“Never seen a penguin,” Bowman said. “Nor a polar bear, nor a dogsled.
“Anchorage is really pretty. It’s like Omaha, basically. It’s got everything Omaha would have as far as a night scene. It’s just like a regular city.”
Bowman said he likes Alaska, but wouldn’t want to live there again. It’s too far from everything, he said, and plane tickets are expensive. He’d like North Carolina, where beaches, mountains, countryside, sports and nightlife are all abundant.
That the sun is a little more consistent there?
Bowman would enjoy relating to that, more, too.
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
Sunday, Aug 26, 2007 - 12:08:54 am CDT
LINK
Nebraska senior cornerback Zackary Bowman is much like the sun in Alaska.
He’s a big, bright star, yet isn’t always able to shine.
Bowman moved to Anchorage, Alaska, when he was 15. He remembers needing to adjust to the odd hours of sunlight — or lack thereof — during certain seasons.
For instance, in Barrow, the northernmost village of Alaska, there’s no daylight, period, for 64 days in the winter.
Bowman can relate. In fact he’s gone much longer without shining. Try 603 days, and counting.
It was Dec. 29, 2005, when Bowman turned in a dominating, boy-the-future-looks-bright performance against Michigan in the Alamo Bowl.
Bowman, a junior college transfer in his first year as a Husker, blanketed Wolverine receivers, intercepted his second pass of the season and set a Husker bowl-game record with five pass breakups.
There also was the wacky final kickoff return, when Bowman assisted on the touchdown-saving tackle that ended the game … after most players, coaches, fans and media thought the game had already ended.
Bowman, beset by two knee injuries, hasn’t played since. Much like the winters in Alaska, it’s been his darkest time.
Of course, there’s the bright side, literally, to enduring those long, dark Alaskan winters.
The Alaskan summers.
Turns out, the sun does shine in Barrow … for 84 straight days in the summertime. In Anchorage, where there’s as little as 5½ hours of sunlight per day in the winter, the summer brings 24 hours of functional daylight.
“It’s crazy,” Bowman said. “It kind of throws you off guard a little bit.
“I couldn’t sleep. A lot of people think when the sun goes down, the time’s getting late. But there, when the sun stays up …”
Bowman spent much of his extra daylight time fishing, he said. It’s an activity he still enjoys in Nebraska at area ponds.
As a high school senior, Bowman remembered late-night parties in the daylight. He’d play basketball, go bowling, go-carting … all under a midnight sun.
So, is Bowman’s personal summer solstice just around the corner?
Nebraska coaches, players and fans certainly hope that’s the case.
Bowman returned to practice two weeks into Nebraska’s fall camp. When he’s able to return to game action, however, is unclear. Coach Bill Callahan has said Bowman could return by late September or early October, when Nebraska earnestly begins the Big 12 Conference portion of its schedule.
Bowman’s most recent injury was a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee in March, the second week of spring practice. It required surgery, and he’s been rehabilitating.
That came after Bowman had recovered from a torn ACL in his left knee in the first week of fall camp in 2006.
Talk about feeling like a falling star. …
Before his injuries, Bowman clocked a 4.36 time in the 40-yard dash — a Nebraska cornerback record — in January of 2006.
Whether Bowman can return with his same leaping ability and speed after a second knee surgery remains to be seen.
If he does, it could pay the Nebraska secondary huge dividends. That’s a little ironic, considering dividend checks — not the long hours of daylight — are Bowman’s favorite part of living in Alaska.
“It’s free money,” Bowman said, referring to checks Alaskan residents of at least one year receive annually. They’re from an oil rent trust fund and have been issued since 1982.
“Everybody gets one,” Bowman said, noting he’s used his dividend check — some $1,100 — to shop or go on trips.
The dividend checks, Bowman said, aren’t as well-known outside of Alaska as, say, igloos or dogsleds. They rank high, along with polar bears and penguins, as common misconceptions about Alaska, Bowman said.
“Never seen a penguin,” Bowman said. “Nor a polar bear, nor a dogsled.
“Anchorage is really pretty. It’s like Omaha, basically. It’s got everything Omaha would have as far as a night scene. It’s just like a regular city.”
Bowman said he likes Alaska, but wouldn’t want to live there again. It’s too far from everything, he said, and plane tickets are expensive. He’d like North Carolina, where beaches, mountains, countryside, sports and nightlife are all abundant.
That the sun is a little more consistent there?
Bowman would enjoy relating to that, more, too.
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
