NamelessHusker
Banned
Darrel Kinnan is into sports. He’s also into chemistry. In fact, he’s the general chemistry lab manager at UNL.
So when there’s talk of a Husker team having good chemistry, it gets the beakers bubbling over at the lab, where, by the way, NU star Sarah Pavan is working on a 4.0 GPA as a biochemistry major.
“We like to hear it because I think it does give us some good publicity,” Kinnan said, “not necessarily that it has anything to do with what we teach.”
Kinnan, I’ve learned, could teach me a little bit about sports. He has season tickets for Nebraska football and basketball, and he was at Qwest Center Omaha for the volleyball regional last weekend.
He knows his Huskers, and he knows how this chemistry business figures into the equation.
“I think it just has to do with getting along and understanding your role,” he said. “There are times that you have to rely on your teammates, and there are times when you have to go to the star. I think teams that do well know when to do that.
“I think they call it chemistry because if you put two products together or two reactives together, they’re going to react in a certain way and give you a product. So I think that’s somehow how it’s related.
“You have to have the right reactives, the right conditions, hopefully the right training and the right coaching and those types of things. It also involves the team playing together.”
Husker senior Melissa Elmer said you have to have the right mixture of elements to get through the tough times.
“If the team has great chemistry, it’s definitely going to show out on the court, especially when you struggle,” she said. “Teams with great chemistry are going to be able to push through that struggle, and this team definitely has that.
“And another thing about chemistry, we have such good relationships on and off the court. That just builds it even more.”
NU head coach John Cook said the team has used last year’s NCAA regional loss to USC as a reactive force this season.
“Last year, when we lost to USC, I think that impacted them as a group,” Cook said. “We only had one senior last year, so the majority of them went through that.
“That was the bond right there.”
Adding five new players could have upset the formula, but Cook said that was never the case.
“Our older players did a great job of embracing them,” he said.
Different players have different roles as far as keeping the team chemistry positive.
“On the court, it’s Jen (Saleaumua),” he said. “In the weight room, it’s Elmer and Chris (Houghtelling).
“Away from the gym or the weight room, they just get along really well. It’s just kind of a team thing. They enjoy being together.”
As Kinnan points out, the Huskers’ opponent tonight, Santa Clara, has a key product working in its favor as well.
“The only thing you worry about is Santa Clara doesn’t have anything to worry about,” he said. “They’re the underdog. They come in loose.”
But if NU follows the law of chemical equilibrium — a relation stating that in a reaction mixture at equilibrium, there is a condition (given by the equilibrium constant) relating the concentrations of the reactants and products — everything should be peachy (don’t look for that in your chemistry book).
Kinnan thinks the Huskers’ molecular structure is in championship form.
“They have good senior leadership,” he said. “They have very good young players that bring a little more dimension to the team.”
And then there’s the most important reactive of all, the reason Kinnan thinks this could be a winning weekend in San Antonio.
“The reason I think it could be very successful,” he said, “is the success they’ve had already.”
Having an Academic All-American from the chemistry lab doesn’t hurt.
“I know all the formulas,” Pavan said.
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