Eric the Red
Team HuskerBoard
An interview with Steve Pederson
BY JOHN MABRY / Lincoln Journal Star
You could argue that these are the best of times for Steve Pederson as athletic director at the University of Nebraska. He’s definitely seen worse.
The football program appears to be on the right path under Bill Callahan. The team finished strong, capping an 8-4 season with big wins at Colorado and in the Alamo Bowl over Michigan.
The facilities improvement project appears to be on track for completion before the 2006 football season begins Sept. 2 against Louisiana Tech. As Callahan would say, everyone’s “juiced” for the Sept. 16 visit to USC.
The Hawks Championship Center is near completion and getting plenty of use. The Tom and Nancy Osborne Athletic Complex will be finished this summer.
Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson (left) talks with fans Jeff Fritch (center) and Kirk Rowan before the 2005 Red-White Spring Game. (William Lauer)
But, of course, there’s always going to be some sticky stuff.
There are more than a few Husker baseball fans who are upset Pederson chose Cox Communications over NET for TV rights. There are also a lot of impatient basketball boosters who think Barry Collier has had his chance and needs to be replaced.
Pederson talked about those topics and more Friday in his South Stadium office, so let’s get to it.
I know the recent weather probably hasn’t helped the facilities project, but what will and will not be done when the football season opens Sept. 2?
“Everything will be done. The construction people have been fabulous. It’s fun to walk over there because the crew is working so hard. The Hawks Championship Center is basically done. We still have to finish the sand volleyball court. The baseball and softball hitting lanes and pitching lanes will be moved in once their season’s over.
“There were some timing issues. We do not need to be right in the middle of the season and move. We’ll move in the summer.
“The Osborne Complex will be done so we can be moved in when the football team shows up to practice, and our staff will be moved in. Also, everything will be ready for the first game for our fans — the concourses, the restrooms, the seating, the skyboxes. All that will be ready. It’s exciting.”
What will fans be most impressed with?
“I think two things will strike them. No. 1, the concourse. The fact that the stadium will all be interconnected with the exception of the south end zone now. I think it’s going to be different for people arriving at the games because we have so many people who go around the stadium to get from the parking or wherever they come from to their seats.
“They’re going to be able to enter the stadium and take the concourse inside the stadium. For the fans in the north end zone, the fact these fabulous restrooms and amenities are going to be right there for them.
“And then I think without a doubt all fans are going to be excited when they see the HuskerVision screen. I think it’s just going to add so much to the stadium. It’s going to be fun.”
When will the new scoreboard go in?
“They’ll be doing that during the summer. We anticipate shortly after the first of August we’ll be able to start turning it on.”
You got a nice donation from Howard Hawks. Can you tell me how much?
“No.”
Can you give me a ballpark figure on how much money has been raised for the facilities project?
“We don’t want to announce any total numbers, only to say we’ve had a lot of good things happen. And at some juncture, we probably will. We’ve had some numbers. We did have the $22.5 million number out there, but I don’t want to throw other numbers out.”
You have some new football ticket holders on the north side of the stadium. How has that process gone?
“We didn’t know exactly what to expect when we started this in terms of numbers, but finally, as it was growing so dramatically, we said let’s put on a cutoff date and go, so we stopped at 14,999 deposits on tickets.
“We have approximately 6,500 new tickets to seat people. We said 1,000 of those were going to go to people who were not in a position to make a contribution.
“But what we found as people made their ticket deposits, a lot of people — way more than the 6,500 — voluntarily offered to make contributions.
“So we said, ‘OK, let’s start this process in the best way we can because we have the numbers.’
“We informed all letterwinners that they got tickets. We informed everyone who had agreed to make a contribution of $250 (and above) per seat that they got tickets. Then we decided is what we would do is wait until April 21, when all of our current season-ticket holders renewals are due, so that we could seat as many as possible.
“There’s always going to be some seats come open. People will move. Some of our older fans will decide they just can’t come anymore. Unfortunately, we’ll have some people who will add tickets through death.
“We said, ‘Let’s wait and see so we can seat as many people as possible, then what we will do is we will take the people who agreed to make a donation of $150 or above and put them in a lottery system for the tickets that are remaining for the pool of tickets that will still be there.’
“Then we’ll take everybody and put them in that 1,000-seat lottery. We’ll run two lotteries, then we’ll establish a waiting list.
“The idea is that even though we have 6,500 seats, if we can squeeze out some more with nonrenewals, we’re trying to help as many people as we can."
As far as next week’s Spring Game, what should fans now about the state of the stadium?
“The north end zone seats will be out of commission. We’ll just be seating in the east, west and south. There’s just no way because of the extensive work they’re doing in there that we can get in.”
Are you hearing from a lot of fans who are upset that NET lost the rights to NU baseball to Cox?
“We appreciate the broadcasts that NET has done, and they have done a good job for us. They’ve brought us a number of good events, and we’ve brought them good viewership on a lot of things, too, and I think they would be the first to acknowledge that.
“They requested doing three games this year. Two of them were in windows that were already selected by Fox for Big 12 broadcasts. That would have meant that there was only really one game — an April game — that would have been broadcast on NET.
“The Cox people — and we have had ongoing conversations about a lot of things because they’ve done a lot of our pay-per-view broadcasts — were willing to do six games. In doing those six games, it gave us a lot of chance to look at the world of cable TV.
“I don’t know where this is all leading. I don’t know where it’s going to lead long term. All I know is that as a lot of these things have started, people thought, ‘Well, that won’t ever take off and go.’ We need to be on the front end of whatever’s happening in the television world, so we tried a couple of games working with NET, a couple of cable broadcasts in volleyball, last year, just to see how it works.
“Now we’re trying this to see how all of it works. We knew early on we were pushing to get it going. We had a few technical difficulties, which we’ve gotten straightened out now. Some of it was just people working together for the first time.
“Cox has reached an agreement with Charter Media, which covers most of western Nebraska. We still are hoping to get Norfolk on. Cox has talked to them twice, and they said no.
“We’ve also got broadcasts going live into six different states, through Cox systems that go into Texas, go into Oklahoma, go into Kansas, go into Arkansas, Florida. A lot of this cable stuff, what it is important to us is recruiting. Pinnacle was able to work a deal with Sirius satellite radio to carry baseball games. That is huge for us. That means as we’re recruiting kids all over the country, Mike (Anderson) can tell them our games are live on Sirius radio.
“We’re doing a lot of stuff on Huskers.com, but the more we can do on some of these cable things, the more we can see what’s out there, it also gives us a chance, working with someone like Cox and Time Warner, to next year bring back some broadcasts — we play A&M down there — it might very well be we can bring the broadcast back here and bring us away games that we would have never gotten here.
“We’re in a state of 1.7 million people. We have got to continue to be a national presence in recruiting. I anticipate we’ll continue to work on NET on things in the future. We want to get it throughout the state. We also want the option to get as much nationally as we can and see what’s out there for us.”
NET does do games for CSTV, so they’re getting some national exposure, so how is that national exposure different?
“NET has been doing some things with CSTV. We’ve done that previously. The game against Creighton was tape-delayed the next night (on CSTV) I think at 9:30. Those are good things. We’re hopeful of doing as many live broadcasts as we can, and we’re hopeful of seeing what’s in this cable market itself. The CSTV thing is fine, but I think there’s a bigger plan out there for us overall, and we want to see what that bigger plan is.
“Additionally, if that can produce some revenue for us, that’s another source of revenue for our program.”
So this talk that there was an issue with one of the NET announcers (Kevin Kugler) and his radio show — that was not part of this discussion at all?
“As we do with Pinnacle and everybody else, we have made the request that we be able to select the talent for our broadcasts. A lot of that is branding. We want to use our people. We try to use Jim Rose as much as we can. We try to use Greg Sharpe a lot. He did the basketball broadcasts for us. We have asked (to have) input on that, which as far as I know, is pretty typical for most universities.
“Our issue is not one announcer. Our issue is we want our own announcer brand in our product, and that’s a pretty reasonable request on the part of any university.”
So the talk that Kugler was part of this problem …
“We would not make a decision on broadcasting based on a single announcer.”
Should Husker volleyball fans be nervous about losing the NET connection?
“I can’t say I know what we’ll be doing this fall yet. That’s part of what we’re finding out right now, what it is that makes the most sense. We’re going to have those discussions. It’s important for us to bring the broadcast to as many people as we can. We know what can be done at NET. We’re finding out what can be done on cable.”
Any idea on how much revenue you can generate with the deal with Cox?
“We don’t anticipate generating a lot of revenue. That’s not the initial reason we’re doing it. We think down the road there will be some opportunities probably. That was not the basis, to generate some specific revenue this year.”
Any talk of any change in the football booth with Jim Rose and Adrian Fiala?
“There hasn’t been any talk to my knowledge.”
You saw something in Ben Howland awhile back, so people know you have a clue about basketball. Fans here want the same thing, the same kind of progress. What do you tell fans who say, “When are we going to get ours?”
“When Ben took over at Pittsburgh, we were literally at the very bottom of the Big East. Three years later, we were playing in the championship game of the conference tournament against Boston College.
“We’ve made steps with our basketball program. Obviously, we want to take bigger steps. We want this program to be great. I believe Nebraska basketball can be among the top schools in this conference. And if you’re among the top schools in this conference, you’ll be among the top schools in the country. You’ll get there.
“When I left Pittsburgh, the basketball team was rated No. 4 in the country. It can be done, and we’ve got to do it.”
Do you see Barry Collier as part of the long-term picture here?
“I sure hope so. At the end of this year, when we announced what we were doing — and I understood why people were wondering what we were going to do — I think when you make a change in your coach, you have to be very certain there’s no way it’s going to go.
“We saw some good things this year. There were flashes of maybe we’re turning the corner. I didn’t want to make a decision that would disrupt that if indeed that’s what’s happening. I’m in hopes that it is.
“But we also all know that we have high expectations for the program, and we have to keep pushing toward those expectations. Barry knows that as well.”
What’s his contract situation?
“Barry has two years left on his contract (through the 2007-08 season), and we have not made any changes to his contract.”
If the Huskers don’t win the first two games at the Big 12 Tournament in Dallas, would be talking about a new coach?
“I think winning games in the tournament does have some effect on how the season looks, that you’re building.
“Rightly or wrongly, in basketball you tend to build toward the end-of-season tournaments. It’s interesting. I get the USA Today poll at the end of the year, after the championship game, and Florida’s No. 1 and UCLA’s No. 2. Well, they weren’t No. 1 and No. 2 three weeks before. Basketball, a lot’s riding on tournaments.”
“So, in taking the season in total, you add the tournaments into how everything looks. The win over Oklahoma was impressive. There was also an energy level and an approach to the tournament that was exciting to watch, too.”
Florida proved you can do both well — football and basketball. I assume you feel the same way about NU?
“Absolutely.”
Did the cost of a coaching change ever enter the discussion at all?
“We’re in great shape financially, so we will do whatever the appropriate thing to do. The decisions on basketball are going to be made with the best information we have at the time as to what the program needs. Right now, there have been a lot of coaching changes in the conference. I hope the stability maybe will lend itself to some good things for our team.”
There’s talk of a new arena in Lincoln. Would the Huskers be interested in being part of the arrangement for basketball?
“No. 1, we love the Devaney Center. We continue to try to update and improve the Devaney Center, and we believe that there are things that we’ll want to do to the Devaney Center, but overall, we don’t have a facility issue with (Devaney).
“Until there’s more concrete information on an arena, it’s a little bit speculation about what might happen. I do know this. We use the Devaney Center all day long, so in an arena that would be a more public arena with a lot of events, I think it would be a challenge to integrate a university athletic program on a consistent basis.
“People say you can go down there and just play your basketball games. It’s a little bigger issue for us than that for us. We want what’s great for Lincoln. We want Lincoln to grow and be a vibrant place, so we don’t ever rule anything out. But at the same time, it’s a challenge for us to schedule what we already have. To have to schedule around other things would probably make it even more difficult.”
What’s your long-term facility vision for NU volleyball?
“We don’t have plans for that right now because (the Coliseum) is such a great venue. Do we wish we could fit a few more people in there? Yeah. But I’m not sure how you could do that. You’re better off to have this great crowd and this great place and just try to maximize that.
“The courtside seating was an addition to that. If there are little things we can do, we’ll try to do them.”
What about a donation for volleyball tickets in the future?
“You don’t ever rule anything out. We don’t have a plan for that right now, but it is a hot ticket.”
What are some issues where fans might see change on the conference or national stage?
“I think, No. 1, the 12 games in football is probably going to cause everybody to take a look at the whole season. I think that could lead to discussions about the future of (conference) championship games. I think that’s already been talked about a little bit, but not as much in depth. Now you’re playing more games. You’re trying to sandwich more into a shorter period of time. I think that’s going to cause some discussion of that.
“I also think there’s going to be a lot of discussion about what happens with television because you have some new people coming into the television market.”
Say whatever you want about the following:
Sports journalism
“Changing rapidly. I think just changing rapidly. I think the Internet has caused a lot of that change.”
The governor’s race
“I stay as far away from politics as I can.”
Nebraska baseball
“Exciting. Fun to watch the continued growth of this program.”
Brook Berringer
“Special guy, one of the really special people that I’ve had a chance to be around in this business. Never would a spring game go by when you wouldn’t think a lot about Brook.”
Zac Taylor
“He impresses more every time I watch him. His ability continues to be enhanced every day. He’s got the most fabulous character of any quarterback I’ve seen in a long time.”
USC
“Will be as highly anticipated a game as we’ve had in a long time.”
Reach John Mabry at 473-7320 or jmabry@journalstar.com.
BY JOHN MABRY / Lincoln Journal Star
You could argue that these are the best of times for Steve Pederson as athletic director at the University of Nebraska. He’s definitely seen worse.
The football program appears to be on the right path under Bill Callahan. The team finished strong, capping an 8-4 season with big wins at Colorado and in the Alamo Bowl over Michigan.
The facilities improvement project appears to be on track for completion before the 2006 football season begins Sept. 2 against Louisiana Tech. As Callahan would say, everyone’s “juiced” for the Sept. 16 visit to USC.
The Hawks Championship Center is near completion and getting plenty of use. The Tom and Nancy Osborne Athletic Complex will be finished this summer.
Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson (left) talks with fans Jeff Fritch (center) and Kirk Rowan before the 2005 Red-White Spring Game. (William Lauer)
But, of course, there’s always going to be some sticky stuff.
There are more than a few Husker baseball fans who are upset Pederson chose Cox Communications over NET for TV rights. There are also a lot of impatient basketball boosters who think Barry Collier has had his chance and needs to be replaced.
Pederson talked about those topics and more Friday in his South Stadium office, so let’s get to it.
I know the recent weather probably hasn’t helped the facilities project, but what will and will not be done when the football season opens Sept. 2?
“Everything will be done. The construction people have been fabulous. It’s fun to walk over there because the crew is working so hard. The Hawks Championship Center is basically done. We still have to finish the sand volleyball court. The baseball and softball hitting lanes and pitching lanes will be moved in once their season’s over.
“There were some timing issues. We do not need to be right in the middle of the season and move. We’ll move in the summer.
“The Osborne Complex will be done so we can be moved in when the football team shows up to practice, and our staff will be moved in. Also, everything will be ready for the first game for our fans — the concourses, the restrooms, the seating, the skyboxes. All that will be ready. It’s exciting.”
What will fans be most impressed with?
“I think two things will strike them. No. 1, the concourse. The fact that the stadium will all be interconnected with the exception of the south end zone now. I think it’s going to be different for people arriving at the games because we have so many people who go around the stadium to get from the parking or wherever they come from to their seats.
“They’re going to be able to enter the stadium and take the concourse inside the stadium. For the fans in the north end zone, the fact these fabulous restrooms and amenities are going to be right there for them.
“And then I think without a doubt all fans are going to be excited when they see the HuskerVision screen. I think it’s just going to add so much to the stadium. It’s going to be fun.”
When will the new scoreboard go in?
“They’ll be doing that during the summer. We anticipate shortly after the first of August we’ll be able to start turning it on.”
You got a nice donation from Howard Hawks. Can you tell me how much?
“No.”
Can you give me a ballpark figure on how much money has been raised for the facilities project?
“We don’t want to announce any total numbers, only to say we’ve had a lot of good things happen. And at some juncture, we probably will. We’ve had some numbers. We did have the $22.5 million number out there, but I don’t want to throw other numbers out.”
You have some new football ticket holders on the north side of the stadium. How has that process gone?
“We didn’t know exactly what to expect when we started this in terms of numbers, but finally, as it was growing so dramatically, we said let’s put on a cutoff date and go, so we stopped at 14,999 deposits on tickets.
“We have approximately 6,500 new tickets to seat people. We said 1,000 of those were going to go to people who were not in a position to make a contribution.
“But what we found as people made their ticket deposits, a lot of people — way more than the 6,500 — voluntarily offered to make contributions.
“So we said, ‘OK, let’s start this process in the best way we can because we have the numbers.’
“We informed all letterwinners that they got tickets. We informed everyone who had agreed to make a contribution of $250 (and above) per seat that they got tickets. Then we decided is what we would do is wait until April 21, when all of our current season-ticket holders renewals are due, so that we could seat as many as possible.
“There’s always going to be some seats come open. People will move. Some of our older fans will decide they just can’t come anymore. Unfortunately, we’ll have some people who will add tickets through death.
“We said, ‘Let’s wait and see so we can seat as many people as possible, then what we will do is we will take the people who agreed to make a donation of $150 or above and put them in a lottery system for the tickets that are remaining for the pool of tickets that will still be there.’
“Then we’ll take everybody and put them in that 1,000-seat lottery. We’ll run two lotteries, then we’ll establish a waiting list.
“The idea is that even though we have 6,500 seats, if we can squeeze out some more with nonrenewals, we’re trying to help as many people as we can."
As far as next week’s Spring Game, what should fans now about the state of the stadium?
“The north end zone seats will be out of commission. We’ll just be seating in the east, west and south. There’s just no way because of the extensive work they’re doing in there that we can get in.”
Are you hearing from a lot of fans who are upset that NET lost the rights to NU baseball to Cox?
“We appreciate the broadcasts that NET has done, and they have done a good job for us. They’ve brought us a number of good events, and we’ve brought them good viewership on a lot of things, too, and I think they would be the first to acknowledge that.
“They requested doing three games this year. Two of them were in windows that were already selected by Fox for Big 12 broadcasts. That would have meant that there was only really one game — an April game — that would have been broadcast on NET.
“The Cox people — and we have had ongoing conversations about a lot of things because they’ve done a lot of our pay-per-view broadcasts — were willing to do six games. In doing those six games, it gave us a lot of chance to look at the world of cable TV.
“I don’t know where this is all leading. I don’t know where it’s going to lead long term. All I know is that as a lot of these things have started, people thought, ‘Well, that won’t ever take off and go.’ We need to be on the front end of whatever’s happening in the television world, so we tried a couple of games working with NET, a couple of cable broadcasts in volleyball, last year, just to see how it works.
“Now we’re trying this to see how all of it works. We knew early on we were pushing to get it going. We had a few technical difficulties, which we’ve gotten straightened out now. Some of it was just people working together for the first time.
“Cox has reached an agreement with Charter Media, which covers most of western Nebraska. We still are hoping to get Norfolk on. Cox has talked to them twice, and they said no.
“We’ve also got broadcasts going live into six different states, through Cox systems that go into Texas, go into Oklahoma, go into Kansas, go into Arkansas, Florida. A lot of this cable stuff, what it is important to us is recruiting. Pinnacle was able to work a deal with Sirius satellite radio to carry baseball games. That is huge for us. That means as we’re recruiting kids all over the country, Mike (Anderson) can tell them our games are live on Sirius radio.
“We’re doing a lot of stuff on Huskers.com, but the more we can do on some of these cable things, the more we can see what’s out there, it also gives us a chance, working with someone like Cox and Time Warner, to next year bring back some broadcasts — we play A&M down there — it might very well be we can bring the broadcast back here and bring us away games that we would have never gotten here.
“We’re in a state of 1.7 million people. We have got to continue to be a national presence in recruiting. I anticipate we’ll continue to work on NET on things in the future. We want to get it throughout the state. We also want the option to get as much nationally as we can and see what’s out there for us.”
NET does do games for CSTV, so they’re getting some national exposure, so how is that national exposure different?
“NET has been doing some things with CSTV. We’ve done that previously. The game against Creighton was tape-delayed the next night (on CSTV) I think at 9:30. Those are good things. We’re hopeful of doing as many live broadcasts as we can, and we’re hopeful of seeing what’s in this cable market itself. The CSTV thing is fine, but I think there’s a bigger plan out there for us overall, and we want to see what that bigger plan is.
“Additionally, if that can produce some revenue for us, that’s another source of revenue for our program.”
So this talk that there was an issue with one of the NET announcers (Kevin Kugler) and his radio show — that was not part of this discussion at all?
“As we do with Pinnacle and everybody else, we have made the request that we be able to select the talent for our broadcasts. A lot of that is branding. We want to use our people. We try to use Jim Rose as much as we can. We try to use Greg Sharpe a lot. He did the basketball broadcasts for us. We have asked (to have) input on that, which as far as I know, is pretty typical for most universities.
“Our issue is not one announcer. Our issue is we want our own announcer brand in our product, and that’s a pretty reasonable request on the part of any university.”
So the talk that Kugler was part of this problem …
“We would not make a decision on broadcasting based on a single announcer.”
Should Husker volleyball fans be nervous about losing the NET connection?
“I can’t say I know what we’ll be doing this fall yet. That’s part of what we’re finding out right now, what it is that makes the most sense. We’re going to have those discussions. It’s important for us to bring the broadcast to as many people as we can. We know what can be done at NET. We’re finding out what can be done on cable.”
Any idea on how much revenue you can generate with the deal with Cox?
“We don’t anticipate generating a lot of revenue. That’s not the initial reason we’re doing it. We think down the road there will be some opportunities probably. That was not the basis, to generate some specific revenue this year.”
Any talk of any change in the football booth with Jim Rose and Adrian Fiala?
“There hasn’t been any talk to my knowledge.”
You saw something in Ben Howland awhile back, so people know you have a clue about basketball. Fans here want the same thing, the same kind of progress. What do you tell fans who say, “When are we going to get ours?”
“When Ben took over at Pittsburgh, we were literally at the very bottom of the Big East. Three years later, we were playing in the championship game of the conference tournament against Boston College.
“We’ve made steps with our basketball program. Obviously, we want to take bigger steps. We want this program to be great. I believe Nebraska basketball can be among the top schools in this conference. And if you’re among the top schools in this conference, you’ll be among the top schools in the country. You’ll get there.
“When I left Pittsburgh, the basketball team was rated No. 4 in the country. It can be done, and we’ve got to do it.”
Do you see Barry Collier as part of the long-term picture here?
“I sure hope so. At the end of this year, when we announced what we were doing — and I understood why people were wondering what we were going to do — I think when you make a change in your coach, you have to be very certain there’s no way it’s going to go.
“We saw some good things this year. There were flashes of maybe we’re turning the corner. I didn’t want to make a decision that would disrupt that if indeed that’s what’s happening. I’m in hopes that it is.
“But we also all know that we have high expectations for the program, and we have to keep pushing toward those expectations. Barry knows that as well.”
What’s his contract situation?
“Barry has two years left on his contract (through the 2007-08 season), and we have not made any changes to his contract.”
If the Huskers don’t win the first two games at the Big 12 Tournament in Dallas, would be talking about a new coach?
“I think winning games in the tournament does have some effect on how the season looks, that you’re building.
“Rightly or wrongly, in basketball you tend to build toward the end-of-season tournaments. It’s interesting. I get the USA Today poll at the end of the year, after the championship game, and Florida’s No. 1 and UCLA’s No. 2. Well, they weren’t No. 1 and No. 2 three weeks before. Basketball, a lot’s riding on tournaments.”
“So, in taking the season in total, you add the tournaments into how everything looks. The win over Oklahoma was impressive. There was also an energy level and an approach to the tournament that was exciting to watch, too.”
Florida proved you can do both well — football and basketball. I assume you feel the same way about NU?
“Absolutely.”
Did the cost of a coaching change ever enter the discussion at all?
“We’re in great shape financially, so we will do whatever the appropriate thing to do. The decisions on basketball are going to be made with the best information we have at the time as to what the program needs. Right now, there have been a lot of coaching changes in the conference. I hope the stability maybe will lend itself to some good things for our team.”
There’s talk of a new arena in Lincoln. Would the Huskers be interested in being part of the arrangement for basketball?
“No. 1, we love the Devaney Center. We continue to try to update and improve the Devaney Center, and we believe that there are things that we’ll want to do to the Devaney Center, but overall, we don’t have a facility issue with (Devaney).
“Until there’s more concrete information on an arena, it’s a little bit speculation about what might happen. I do know this. We use the Devaney Center all day long, so in an arena that would be a more public arena with a lot of events, I think it would be a challenge to integrate a university athletic program on a consistent basis.
“People say you can go down there and just play your basketball games. It’s a little bigger issue for us than that for us. We want what’s great for Lincoln. We want Lincoln to grow and be a vibrant place, so we don’t ever rule anything out. But at the same time, it’s a challenge for us to schedule what we already have. To have to schedule around other things would probably make it even more difficult.”
What’s your long-term facility vision for NU volleyball?
“We don’t have plans for that right now because (the Coliseum) is such a great venue. Do we wish we could fit a few more people in there? Yeah. But I’m not sure how you could do that. You’re better off to have this great crowd and this great place and just try to maximize that.
“The courtside seating was an addition to that. If there are little things we can do, we’ll try to do them.”
What about a donation for volleyball tickets in the future?
“You don’t ever rule anything out. We don’t have a plan for that right now, but it is a hot ticket.”
What are some issues where fans might see change on the conference or national stage?
“I think, No. 1, the 12 games in football is probably going to cause everybody to take a look at the whole season. I think that could lead to discussions about the future of (conference) championship games. I think that’s already been talked about a little bit, but not as much in depth. Now you’re playing more games. You’re trying to sandwich more into a shorter period of time. I think that’s going to cause some discussion of that.
“I also think there’s going to be a lot of discussion about what happens with television because you have some new people coming into the television market.”
Say whatever you want about the following:
Sports journalism
“Changing rapidly. I think just changing rapidly. I think the Internet has caused a lot of that change.”
The governor’s race
“I stay as far away from politics as I can.”
Nebraska baseball
“Exciting. Fun to watch the continued growth of this program.”
Brook Berringer
“Special guy, one of the really special people that I’ve had a chance to be around in this business. Never would a spring game go by when you wouldn’t think a lot about Brook.”
Zac Taylor
“He impresses more every time I watch him. His ability continues to be enhanced every day. He’s got the most fabulous character of any quarterback I’ve seen in a long time.”
USC
“Will be as highly anticipated a game as we’ve had in a long time.”
Reach John Mabry at 473-7320 or jmabry@journalstar.com.