DaveH
Team HuskerBoard
Published Sunday
November 20, 2005
Harold W. Andersen: How Husker football is covered can help fuel fans' intolerance
BY HAROLD W. ANDERSEN
WORLD-HERALD CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
I've not heard of any scientific poll on either (1) the question of how a majority of Nebraska football fans feel about the current Husker team and head coach Bill Callahan and Athletic Director Steve Pederson or (2) the fans' opinion of the way Nebraska print and broadcast journalists are reporting the story involving the Huskers, Callahan and Pederson.
But I do know that the majority feeling of those readers and acquaintances who have commented to me is reflected well in the following comment from a reader who has been a longtime, close observer of the nature of sports reporting and commentary in Nebraska:
"I believe that the change in sports journalism in the two larger papers in this state has contributed to the unfortunate decline in fan tolerance." (To that appraisal, I would quickly add the performance of radio and TV commentators.)
What my Lincoln reader was talking about - and what I'm talking about - was much in evidence in the way some in the press handled the story of Nebraska's 27-25 victory over Kansas State eight days ago.
Leading up to the Kansas State game, the common comment was that Callahan was on a hot seat - or definitely would be on a hot seat, possibly a job-costing hot seat - if the Huskers didn't beat the Wildcats. (This notion was spread despite the fact that University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman recently had made clear that Callahan's performance would be evaluated on establishing "a system that works" in the long run rather than on the outcome of the Kansas State and Colorado games.)
As soon as Callahan (and, by implication, Pederson) had gotten off the "must-win" hot seat, created in part by press hype, the same elements in the press figuratively moved Callahan to another hot seat, immediately challenging his decision to end quarterback Harrison Beck's redshirt season by using him to replace quarterback Zac Taylor, who was knocked unconscious in the game.
One hyperventilating radio commentator reasoned (too charitable a description of his thought process?) that Callahan sent Beck into the game "for selfish reasons," i.e., to save his job. A print commentator said Callahan had gambled "with his job and the future of the program."
Beck is a highly regarded prospect, but I had never previously encountered the suggestion that the future of the Nebraska football program might depend on him. The tone of some of the comments - a mixture of surprise and criticism - was, it seems to me, all the harder to understand when you recall that, several weeks earlier, Callahan had listed Beck as No. 2 on the quarterback depth chart. And when Beck himself gave his unqualified endorsement of Callahan's decision to play him.
"This is what you wait for," the promising freshman said. "This is why you sign your name on the dotted line to get your scholarship, for games like this."
In those remarks, Beck seemed to have a better concept of what the Kansas State game meant to the Huskers than did some of the commentators: A winning season. A bowl bid. And, rarely mentioned, a month or so of additional practice time as the young team prepares for a bowl game.
The importance of the win was scarcely mentioned by, for one example, a radio commentator who described the game as "awful, horrific . . . just boring . . . disgusting to watch." Another radio and television commentator, on the air shortly after the Husker victory, said the 2005 Huskers have "the worst tackling defense I've seen in Nebraska."
I've commented before on how some commentators seem so eager to turn what they think is a clever phrase that they produce something that certainly doesn't seem very clever to me. An example from the commentary on the Nebraska-Kansas State game: "Even the wind evidently tired of the futility, blowing hot-dog wrappers and Gatorade cups across the field."
Then there are assertions that seem to me to test the bounds of credibility. This from a tribute to Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, who announced during the week after the Nebraska game that he would retire at the end of the year: "What he did is the greatest accomplishment in college football history."
Let's see now. Intercollegiate football evolved from rugby, which in turn had evolved from soccer. The intercollegiate game started to grow in popularity at least 125 years ago.
Everyone, of course, is entitled to his or her opinion on matters for which there obviously can be no single definitive answer. Just put me down as an observer who believes that Snyder's noteworthy job in turning around an embarrassingly unsuccessful football program at Kansas State, as deserving of reasonable praise as it is, cannot without qualification be declared the greatest accomplishment in college football history.
* * *
Among the terms of endearment we shower on our three cocker spaniels, some are, I will quickly concede, quite exaggerated. (But, I'm confident, no more so than the language directed at their pets by the vast majority of dog owners.)
I'm thinking of words like those that I hear flowing up the stairs as Marian prepares breakfast for the dogs. For example: "You are the best dogs in the world!"
But the other day, I heard Marian use an unexaggerated description of unchallengeable accuracy. "We are co-dependents," Marian told her three attentive admirers as they waited eagerly for breakfast.
• The writer, retired publisher of The World-Herald, may be reached at P.O. Box 27347, Omaha, NE 68127. The telephone number is (402) 593-4553.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discuss
November 20, 2005
Harold W. Andersen: How Husker football is covered can help fuel fans' intolerance
BY HAROLD W. ANDERSEN
WORLD-HERALD CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
I've not heard of any scientific poll on either (1) the question of how a majority of Nebraska football fans feel about the current Husker team and head coach Bill Callahan and Athletic Director Steve Pederson or (2) the fans' opinion of the way Nebraska print and broadcast journalists are reporting the story involving the Huskers, Callahan and Pederson.
But I do know that the majority feeling of those readers and acquaintances who have commented to me is reflected well in the following comment from a reader who has been a longtime, close observer of the nature of sports reporting and commentary in Nebraska:
"I believe that the change in sports journalism in the two larger papers in this state has contributed to the unfortunate decline in fan tolerance." (To that appraisal, I would quickly add the performance of radio and TV commentators.)
What my Lincoln reader was talking about - and what I'm talking about - was much in evidence in the way some in the press handled the story of Nebraska's 27-25 victory over Kansas State eight days ago.
Leading up to the Kansas State game, the common comment was that Callahan was on a hot seat - or definitely would be on a hot seat, possibly a job-costing hot seat - if the Huskers didn't beat the Wildcats. (This notion was spread despite the fact that University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman recently had made clear that Callahan's performance would be evaluated on establishing "a system that works" in the long run rather than on the outcome of the Kansas State and Colorado games.)
As soon as Callahan (and, by implication, Pederson) had gotten off the "must-win" hot seat, created in part by press hype, the same elements in the press figuratively moved Callahan to another hot seat, immediately challenging his decision to end quarterback Harrison Beck's redshirt season by using him to replace quarterback Zac Taylor, who was knocked unconscious in the game.
One hyperventilating radio commentator reasoned (too charitable a description of his thought process?) that Callahan sent Beck into the game "for selfish reasons," i.e., to save his job. A print commentator said Callahan had gambled "with his job and the future of the program."
Beck is a highly regarded prospect, but I had never previously encountered the suggestion that the future of the Nebraska football program might depend on him. The tone of some of the comments - a mixture of surprise and criticism - was, it seems to me, all the harder to understand when you recall that, several weeks earlier, Callahan had listed Beck as No. 2 on the quarterback depth chart. And when Beck himself gave his unqualified endorsement of Callahan's decision to play him.
"This is what you wait for," the promising freshman said. "This is why you sign your name on the dotted line to get your scholarship, for games like this."
In those remarks, Beck seemed to have a better concept of what the Kansas State game meant to the Huskers than did some of the commentators: A winning season. A bowl bid. And, rarely mentioned, a month or so of additional practice time as the young team prepares for a bowl game.
The importance of the win was scarcely mentioned by, for one example, a radio commentator who described the game as "awful, horrific . . . just boring . . . disgusting to watch." Another radio and television commentator, on the air shortly after the Husker victory, said the 2005 Huskers have "the worst tackling defense I've seen in Nebraska."
I've commented before on how some commentators seem so eager to turn what they think is a clever phrase that they produce something that certainly doesn't seem very clever to me. An example from the commentary on the Nebraska-Kansas State game: "Even the wind evidently tired of the futility, blowing hot-dog wrappers and Gatorade cups across the field."
Then there are assertions that seem to me to test the bounds of credibility. This from a tribute to Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, who announced during the week after the Nebraska game that he would retire at the end of the year: "What he did is the greatest accomplishment in college football history."
Let's see now. Intercollegiate football evolved from rugby, which in turn had evolved from soccer. The intercollegiate game started to grow in popularity at least 125 years ago.
Everyone, of course, is entitled to his or her opinion on matters for which there obviously can be no single definitive answer. Just put me down as an observer who believes that Snyder's noteworthy job in turning around an embarrassingly unsuccessful football program at Kansas State, as deserving of reasonable praise as it is, cannot without qualification be declared the greatest accomplishment in college football history.
* * *
Among the terms of endearment we shower on our three cocker spaniels, some are, I will quickly concede, quite exaggerated. (But, I'm confident, no more so than the language directed at their pets by the vast majority of dog owners.)
I'm thinking of words like those that I hear flowing up the stairs as Marian prepares breakfast for the dogs. For example: "You are the best dogs in the world!"
But the other day, I heard Marian use an unexaggerated description of unchallengeable accuracy. "We are co-dependents," Marian told her three attentive admirers as they waited eagerly for breakfast.
• The writer, retired publisher of The World-Herald, may be reached at P.O. Box 27347, Omaha, NE 68127. The telephone number is (402) 593-4553.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discuss