Husker receiver Broekemeier thrown a curve
By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Monday, Apr 12, 2010 - 11:20:59 pm CDT
The radar gun just wouldn’t light up like it used to.
Shoulder pain had done its worst to another pitcher with promise. In the case of Joe Broekemeier, the fastball dipped from 94 mph to 86. His Husker baseball career was over.
Life’s curveball.
Life went on. A medical hardship waiver would’ve paid for his schooling.
But here’s the thing: Broekemeier didn’t take it.
Take the hardship scholarship and he wouldn’t be able to play any other sports at Nebraska. That wouldn’t do. He had an itch to scratch.
He grew up in Aurora. Saw plenty of football games at Memorial Stadium. But he wanted to play there, experience the tunnel walk, the chills, the dream.
“I figured looking down the road, another loan would be a lot better than having my money and saying I at least didn’t give it a chance,” Broekemeier said.
A half-baked idea? Some might have said so. Broekemeier hadn’t played football since he was 15.
He was going to be Aurora’s starting quarterback as a sophomore, but two days before the first game, a broken hand suffered in practice left him with a lost season. That was it for football.
Until now. On the urging of friends, including quarterback Zac Lee, he kept badgering the right people for a shot at Husker football.
“I think (Jeff) Jamrog was probably getting annoyed with me because I was bugging him so much trying to get on (the team),” Broekemeier said. “It was just one of those things. They’d say they’d give me a chance and I just kept bugging them because I wanted to do it right away.”
Tryout granted. On the first day of school last fall, Joe Broekemeier the pitcher was suddenly Joe Broekemeier the quarterback.
He was helping run the scout team. No game action, of course.
Quarterback was fine, but he kept whispering to graduate assistant Ross Watson to let him run a few routes at wide receiver.
One day, Watson let him.
“I think we were in seven-on-sevens and I ran by the DBs and scored a couple touchdowns,” Broekemeier said. “And he was like, ‘Uh, you can stay at that position.’”
Broekemeier the receiver. He’d have one year, his senior year, to make it happen.
A long shot, definitely, but the day before spring practice began, Bo Pelini dropped Broekemeier’s name without being asked about him. Shawn Watson did it again a few days later.
Hey, it’s April chatter. But it’s also true that Nebraska’s head football coach isn’t the type to bring up just any Joe.
“There’s still a learning curve there, but he’s a tough kid,” wide receivers coach Ted Gilmore said. “He’s got good ball skills. I’m anxious to see what’s going to happen. It could be interesting. You never know. He might find his way into that rotation.”
The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Broekemeier has no illusions. He knows how much sweat and football studies will be required for him to see any action at all.
But he saw Todd Peterson, a Grand Island kid he knew growing up, have success as a Husker wide receiver.
“The only thing I’d tell him I got on him is speed,” Broekemeier said. “I don’t know if it’s a lot but maybe a little.”
Broekemeier is 23. He jokes he’s old enough now that he has trouble recalling the years of his football and baseball injuries.
But he has no issue imagining what Saturday will be like. Sure, it’s just a spring game, but more than 70,000 people will be watching.
The last time he played football with a running score was eight years ago.
“It’s going to be a lot of emotions because I haven’t played football in forever,” he said.
He suspects it will be weird, crazy, whatever feelings come when perseverance is rewarded.
Reach Brian Christopherson at bchristopherson@journalstar.com or 473-7439.
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