Tim Gay, center, UNL professor of physics,worked with Brad Minerd, left, and Matt Miller, producers at NFL Films, on the NFL "Blast!" project. Gay is well-known for teaching Physics of Football to thousands of Husker fans during halftime of Nebraska football games. He worked with NFL Films this summer to create 21 football physics segments to be shown on an international program called "Blast!" The show is a marketing piece to promote American football to new audiences.

Professor Tim Gay peers in on some video in the production process of the NFL "Blast!" short videos.

Physics of Football lessons to be shared with rest of world

By Kelly Bartling, University Communications

The bow tie, broad grin and enthusiasm of physics professor Tim Gay will soon be seen a bit more widely than just the 74,000 football fans at Memorial Stadium.

Gay's "Physics of Football" lessons will be seen by millions of foreign NFL fans internationally on a National Football League promotional program called "Blast!"

Gay, the professor made famous by HuskerVision for explaining football physics on the big screen during home games, traveled in early July to Philadelphia to co-write and appear in 21 football physics segments filmed at NFL Films studios.

"It was a lot of fun, and very educational for me, to see how they do it in the 'big leagues,'" Gay said. "They had about 50 people working on this shoot, and we spent several frantic days of writing and filming."

"Blast!" is a promotional program by the NFL shown outside the United States to market American football to new audiences. It appears in 190 countries and features interviews, profiles and informational pieces for international audiences. Gay said the Physics of Football segments would be three to four minutes long and include interviews with NFL stars. They are fashioned and written in the entertaining and informative style of the HuskerVision pieces, and in fact, Gay recycled most of the HuskerVision topics for use by the Blast! program.

Gay was co-writer, technical consultant and standup talent for the lead-ins and for voice-overs.

"We cover all the football physics topics: blocking, tackling, kicking, fumbling, timing you name it," Gay said. "They pretty much wrote the scripts and then I made sure the physics was right. I was very impressed at how much better they could make it sound than what I was able to do. The writing was a very dynamic process; we holed up in a windowless room and screamed at each other for two days.

"I introduce each piece on the set, standing in front of a blackboard in a classroom at a local Philadelphia college. They had done interviews with players and found footage and I do a voice-over and then end each piece. They did all the player interviews back in June after I gave them questions to ask."

Gay said he was disappointed that he didn't actually get to interview the players in the segments, like Ahman Green, Tiki Barber, Hugh Douglas, Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb.

He was excited, though, to get a bunch of free suits. And bow ties.

"The best thing was that they went out and spent, like, $10,000 on suits for me. They returned the rest, and I got to keep the ones I wore. That was cool. And I got four bow ties out of the deal."

Roger Kirby, physics chair, said the program helps bring the good news of the university to an international audience.

"More of the world will have heard of the University of Nebraska in another year or so," he said. "Football Physics has already led to significant media coverage, including articles in People magazine, Scientific American for Kids, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as interviews with the BBC, the Canadian Discovery Channel and numerous other radio and television stations. Several other universities, including the Universities of Tennessee, Virginia, and Michigan have started their own Football Physics series."

Gay said it's possible that the Football Physics segments could be shown in the United States in the future, because many "Blast!" segments are shown on ESPN and HBO after their original use. Gay also negotiated free use of the segments in university classrooms and in Memorial Stadium.

Jeff Schmahl, HuskerVision director, said NFL Films is the most respected production group in sports, and that it was an honor to have them pick up on his idea.

"I'm extremely excited for Tim and for the University of Nebraska that of all the thousands of physics professors out there, they chose Dr. Gay. We might have had a small part in finding and creating the thing, but it's Tim and his personality and his knowledge of physics that have been the key reason for the popularity of the feature. He's just got the personality to make these things click. That's really terrific for a University of Nebraska professor to be involved with them, and to have their pieces go before millions."

Football physics Professor Gay presented the Physics of Football on HuskerVision at home football games in the 1999, 2000 and 2001 seasons. To watch archived video of these lessons, visit http://www.physics.unl.ed u/football.html.

UNL considers creating new college

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

University officials confirmed Aug. 21 that they are studying the possibility of launching a new college that would focus on schools, families and communities and their interconnections.

Marjorie Kostelnik, dean of the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences, and Jim O'Hanlon, dean of Teachers College, jointly recommended the study.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman said the study would be undertaken this year, with a possible launch of the new college in fall 2003.

"The nucleus of this new college would be the current faculty of the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences and the Teachers College, but other units and individuals may join as well," Perlman said. "We are not proposing to merge the two colleges but to create an entirely new college designed to promote a unified approach to addressing needs of schools, families, and communities.

"We will spend the upcoming year in exploring whether the formation of such a college would be an important step for UNL to take. This process will involve all interested faculty as well as people in the state in an active manner. If the results of this investigation so warrant, we will launch the new college in the fall of 2003.

"Our goal would be to become a premier national leader in work to strengthen schools, families and communities. In addition to its scholarly agenda, this college would have strong research-based teaching and outreach missions."

Perlman said this wider perspective on scholarship in these disciplines would allow UNL to make a significant commitment to enhancing the quality of people's lives in Nebraska and beyond.

"Schools, families and communities face increasingly complex challenges to their work and functions today," he said. "If they are to be successful and vibrant there must be effective connections among them. Therefore it seems appropriate that we connect the resources within UNL that focus on schools, families and communities. We believe that we have considerable faculty strength in these arenas. We want to develop a structure which will produce synergy among these resources so that we can make highly significant contributions to this important work."

Richard Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the new college is being considered for programmatic and intellectual reasons.

"This means we will have a chance to address the needs of individuals, families and communities in a much more comprehensive way - food, shelter, clothing, health, nutrition, family relations, creativity and schooling. We will cover content in the three major systems in which people live their lives - home, school and community."

Edwards said teachers face a broad spectrum of issues beyond classroom teaching.

"This would uniquely position UNL's teacher training programs by providing them with access to a wider perspective on children and families."

Edwards added, "This effort will provide a critical mass of faculty in the child and family area to create a real center of excellence."

Teachers College, with an enrollment of about 1,725 students, has 176 faculty members. Departments in the college include curriculum and instruction, educational psychology, educational administration, health and human performance, and special education and communications disorders.

Human Resources and Family Sciences, once known as the College of Home Economics, has 800 students and 45 faculty. Its programs are offered through three departments: family and consumer sciences, nutritional science and dietetics, and textiles, clothing and design.

Both colleges offer degrees at the undergraduate, master's and doctoral levels.

A new college would need approval of the NU Board of Regents and might have to be reviewed by the state's coordinating commission for post-secondary education.

The most recent drought map shows southeastern Nebraska remains abnormally dry with areas dealing with moderate drought conditions.

Drought keeps mitigation center busy

By Kelly Bartling, University Communications

Don Wilhite, Mark Svoboda and Mike Hayes could put aside their sophisticated drought monitoring technology and judge the severity of this late-summer drought based on a more common, low-tech tool: the ringing of their phone.

Wilhite, the director of the National Drought Mitigation Center, and climatologists Svoboda and Hayes have been inundated with phone calls, mostly from the media, seeking drought expertise. Based on their phone logs and Web-tracking data, the severity of the 2002 drought is matched by the intense level of media and policy-maker interest.

The three drought specialists logged more than 450 media interviews during the first six months of 2002. In addition, the drought center Web site has counted more than 1.87 million page views during the first half of 2002. This compares to 1.2 million page views, or impressions, during all of 2001. They've been quoted and featured in Time magazine, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and the Weather Channel, appearing in virtually every media outlet imaginable.

"I've been doing five interviews a day for at least three weeks," Svoboda said recently. "That's in addition to the calls Don (Wilhite) and Mike (Hayes) are on. July and August have been the busiest we've seen, by far."

It may seem as though the National Drought Mitigation Center, established at UNL's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources by Wilhite in 1995 with startup funds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the USDA, justified its own existence when a series of severe regional droughts emerged beginning in 1996 in the south-central and southwestern United States. In 1999, the East Coast was hit by drought, and every year since 1999, at least 20 percent to 40 percent of the United States has been drought-stricken, center director Wilhite said.

"Every year since 1999, a good portion of the country has been affected," Wilhite said. "Normally, 10 to 12 percent of the country experiences severe to extreme drought each year, but the last few years, and this year particularly, as much as 40 percent of the country is in drought. That's been unfortunate but also fortunate for us in receiving more recognition for the work that we do in drought monitoring, mitigation and preparedness. This series of drought years has really increased the visibility of the drought center as a source of reliable and authoritative information on the subject."

In 1999, the center launched the U.S. Drought Monitor in partnership with the USDA and NOAA. The weekly map is hosted on the National Drought Mitigation Center's Web site, with authorship alternating between the partners. Svoboda said the emergence of the Drought Monitor has also increased their profile.

"Our work is highly visible to the media and many other user groups, and greater visibility by the media is certainly feeding this visibility," Svoboda said. "They see our name or hear us on the radio I can tell from talking to them they've seen our quotes. Also, on weeks where we're authoring the monitor map, our name is on it and we personally get more calls."

Just this month the center launched a new and improved Web site to improve accessibility, and modified its address to <drought.unl.edu>. Svoboda said that should bring more Web visitors through search engines.

"Like most Internet sites or when we first got into it in 1995 we found we were doubling our volume every 6-to-12 months. Now, we're up to a million hits a month," Svoboda said.

The drought center staff enjoys its attention, but also takes satisfaction in fulfilling its mission in educating and promoting drought awareness and the importance of planning. Wilhite said drought now earns more respect - and he takes pride in that.

"When I first started working on this, in 1982, there were three states with drought plans. And they were largely reactive, response-oriented plans," Wilhite said. "The numbers of states implementing drought plans continues to grow. Now 34 have drought plans, and five are developing them, and some have revised them to put more emphasis on risk management, mitigation and trying to lessen their vulnerability."

Wilhite said many states have followed a methodology he developed to create their drought plans.

Wilhite also maintains active involvement with policymakers and legislation to assure that drought planning, communication and coordination between agencies is a priority. Congress is now considering a bill to create a national drought policy that emphasizes preparedness and the need for local, state and tribal governments to develop drought plans.

Still, the center staff can't help but feel a little stressed after a long, hot dry spell.

"It's more rewarding than frustrating," Svoboda said, "although there are times when I'm on the phone four hours straight. We're bringing a lot of visibility to the university and the center and it's worth it."

A walker prepares to cross the intersection at 14th and Vine streets toward Teachers College Hall. The city of Lincoln installed a 'scramble' system at the intersection. This means when a pedestrian hits the button seeking a 'walk' signal, all the traffic lights turn red so pedestrians can walk any way through the intersection, including diagonally.

New walk system set at 14th, Vine

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

A new crosswalk plan installed at 14th and Vine streets has the potential of unscrambling a congested intersection.

The city of Lincoln has installed the "scramble" system at the intersection, which for years has been plagued by traffic slowdowns caused by heavy pedestrian traffic, said Shane Dostal, senior engineering specialist with Lincoln's Traffic Operations section.

Under the system, pedestrian "walk" lights will not synchronize with the traffic lights but will activate when a button is pushed. When activated, the traffic lights shine red in all directions, and pedestrians can walk any direction, including diagonally, across the intersection. During the scramble, drivers are not to turn right on red lights.

Diagonal crosswalk lead-ins have been painted in the street to encourage the scramble, Dostal said.

Every intersection with a light is observed once every three years, Dostal said, and during the last observance, the heavy pedestrian traffic was noted at this one.

"It's next to impossible to count the number of pedestrians at that intersection," Dostal said. "During peak times, cars coming from the north making left turns onto Vine just stack up forever. We are hoping this helps clear those left turn lanes."

It may take up to 50 seconds for the scramble walk to activate after the button is pushed depending on how soon after the previous scramble the button is reactivated, Dostal said, so patience will be rewarded.

Several cities have variations of the scramble system, and it was decided to try it at this intersection to see if it would help alleviate problems.

"We picked (that intersection) mainly because of the students and their inability or unwillingness to obey the walk/don't walk signs," Dostal said. "If we can get even half to obey this new system, that will be great."

Between Jan. 1, 1999, and July 31, 2002, nine accidents occurred in the intersection; no pedestrians were injured in those accidents.

Lincoln had a scramble system on O Street for a number of years, but it never caught on.

Graduate student Rich Siefken of Wayne drives the quarter-scale tractor on a test pull as mechanized systems management major Tom Person of Albion runs the progressive weight sled at the tractor testing track.

Tractor team preparing for next contest

By Shannon Hartenstein, IANR News and Publishing

A team of University of Nebraska students will combine cash, time, steel and sweat to design and build its fifth quarter-scale tractor this fall.

The NU quarter-scale tractor team allows students to apply their engineering skills through hands-on experience, said Leonard Bashford, quarter scale tractor team adviser and Nebraska tractor test laboratory director.

Eleven team members dedicate much of their free time to designing, building or fund raising, he said. The team usually includes students in agricultural engineering, mechanized systems management and biological systems engineering, Bashford said.

The team works all year to complete the tractor, testing its design and power at tractor pulls and other competitions. They also show off tractors at Big Red Welcome, the Nebraska FFA convention and home football games, Bashford said.

The team puts education into practice in the real world, said Tom Person, team member and senior in mechanized systems management.

"Students can learn a lot in the classroom but hands-on experience also is needed," he said.

Building the tractor keeps students busy, he said. It's not uncommon for students to spend hours - sometimes even days - working in the shop.

One quarter-scale tractor takes hundreds of shop hours to build and costs as much as $4,000 to $5,000, Bashford said. Corporate sponsors donate the engine and a set of tires, and the team raises money to purchase other parts, he said.

To practice for competitions, the team has a weighted sled, which took two years for students to design and $20,000 to build, Bashford said. Past tractors have pulled the 4,800-pound sled as far as 180 feet, he said.

In May, the teams took part in a national competition sponsored by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. The team and their tractors worked hard at pulling their weight against some of the toughest competition in the nation.

Since Bashford and eight students created the team in 1998, their goal has been to keep moving up the ranks in the competition - and they have, placing in the top 10 the past two years.

"We've been able to place higher and higher every year," Bashford said. "As long as we can continue to improve and keep that up we'll be happy."

Big red welcome: A little fun before the semester begins   Big Red Welcome festivities kicked off the fall 2002 semester with a variety of activities on campus Aug. 23-25. University Police Chief Owen Yardley flips pancakes during the late-night pancake feed Aug. 23 at Party on the Plaza. Other events over the weekend were a football-game watch party at the Culture Center, Midnight at the Movies at the Starship Theater on Aug. 24, a convocation on Aug. 25, and the popular Street Festival, which provided a picnic dinner and free giveaways.

Freshman Jenilee Nodlinski, left, races freshman Tim Varilek during the Street Luge down 14th Street during Party at the Rec on Aug. 23. Students enjoyed free pizza at the event, as well as competitions in events such as the joust and an obstacle course.