A friendly letter to Lincoln
Dear Tom Osborne,
You were very smart to ask my advice in helping you turn the Huskers football program back around. Becoming the new athletic director is a big deal. So here’s what you do.
Forget about the football team. You’re three hairlines past that hair-pulling job. And your prescription couldn’t even get this team up.
Steve Pederson, the man who came before you, left you a program deeper in gunk than a Roto-Rooter expunger. It just isn’t worth it.
Instead, focus on directing the No. 1 volleyball team in the nation (the Lady Huskers), and keep your legacy of greatness in Nebraska.
I know. You’ve spent all your life in football and all your success in it has made you a stubborn mule, but I’m here to help. Not because I like you, or respect the success you had with the Huskers, but because you’re old.
And I like old people, I hope to be one someday.
Tom! You are beloved by Husker fans everywhere, and the last thing you want is to be liable for failure. You’ve roamed in the pastures of success and then called it quits at the right time. And now you are among the heroes of Nebraska.
I mean, they elected you to Congress for it!
But now: “Beat Colorado — So easy a caveman could do it,” reads on the shirts being sold in the football sections in sporting good departments all over Lincoln.
Now Tom, let’s be honest. If we wanted to be politically correct, it’d be: “Nebraska coaching — so bad a caveman must be doing it,” or “Beat Colorado — so easy a caveman could do it . I hope and pray to God.”
I mean am I right or am I right?
A 41-6 loss to Missouri. A 45-14 loss on homecoming to Oklahoma State.
You want that pressure?
They want you to swoop down with that piano crate of pressure breaking your spine, and not only return their team to a good team, but to those great dynasty teams of old.
And here’s what you’ve got to work with.
Steve Pederson left you a top five recruiting class. An all-Pac-10 quarterback transfer. A swarm of loyal Big Red fans cluttering every bus stop, chicken fest and cow tipping contest this side of the Mississippi. And, Bill Callahan?
Ring any bells?
The man who took the one-time top dogs of the NCAA and made them into Paris Hilton’s little pansy-chalupa dog.
The man who took a feared “Blackshirt defense,” tougher than 10-year-old jerky and somehow made them into the “Blackskirt defense,” who has become softer than left-out butter.
The man who took your power run game and twisted it into a West Coast Offense, the same type of pass offense Callahan coached in Super bowl XXXVII. His pass attack did throw five touchdowns (thank the Lord two of them were actually to his own team), or that 48-21 loss really would have been embarrassing.
By the way did they tell you you’re paying him $1.75 million per year until 2012?
And with that, you say in your press conference, “I want to do what I can at this point to continue in the pursuit of excellence that has been previously established.”
“Pursuit of excellence,” with Bill Callahan at the reigns? Tom, come on, the best chance for success coming from Memorial Stadium in the next five years under Callahan drips from the urinal cakes in the locker-room.
So I think it may be time to zip it up there, Tom.
On the other hand, you do have the No. 1 team in the nation.
Yeah, its volleyball. There are a couple differences.
One, you don’t always have to scold your players for popping pills (just don’t ask). Believe me, you don’t want to.
Second, tears on the gridiron are a sign of weak players. Tears on a woman’s volleyball court -that’s when you schedule a sick day.
Third, these aren’t your skyscraper football players with biceps like Popeye. These are pretty young girls.
But you don’t have to be the main man here. They’re good. They don’t need you.
Just soak in that glory.
Now leave the droppings: you shot off your mouth and said you were going to bring the football program back to excellence.
Good one.
But don’t worry. All you do is tell Betty Lou to organize a press conference to announce you have done all you can with football in your life and need new challenges.
And then some guy will ask, “What will happen to our football team?”
You say, “Well there’s good news. Yes, Bill Callahan has sent the program back 30 years. Yes, the only players who remember the glory days are now full-time greeters at Wal-Mart. And yes, the team’s morale is as low as Barry White’s g-chord.”
“Wha- what’s the good news Tom?”
“Well, I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Brent New at brent.new@thecampuspress.com.
