"He's Been a Father Figure to All of Us"An emotional Tom Osborne listens as Cornhuser fullback Joel Makovicka speaks about Osborne during a news conference Wednesday announcing Osborne's retirement as Nebraska's head football coach. With Osborne is his wife, Nancy. Osborne is retiring after 25 years as head coach. (Photo by Richard Wright) |
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This year's Orange Bowl will mean more than another possible national championship for the University of Nebraska. It will mark the end of a legendary period in the school's history when Coach Tom Osborne turns over the reins of the winningest program of the last two decades to long-time assistant Frank Solich.
Osborne announced his impending retirement Dec. 10 at a news conference. Although he said he will retire as head coach after the No. 2 Huskers play the third-ranked Tennessee Volunteers in the FedEx Orange Bowl, Osborne might stay on staff through Feb. 4 to help with recruiting.
At the helm of the Huskers as head coach for 25 years, Osborne cited health, spirituality, family and the current strength of the Husker program as reasons for retiring now.
"I'm stepping aside as head coach sometime after the bowl game. There are several reasons - my average work day is 14-15 hours per day. I've had some physical setbacks and I'm OK, but it is not wise for me to push as hard as I have been," he said. "I enjoy the game, the strategy, the players and coaches as much as I ever have, and I hate to leave that part of it, but I don't want to continue in a role where I'm not actively coaching as I always have. Faith is very important to me and I have a strong spiritual sense that this is what needs to be done."
University officials, including Chancellor James Moeser, commended Osborne for his professional success and personal integrity.
"I feel a personal sense of loss at Tom's decision to retire from coaching. . . . It marks the end of what I believe to be the greatest coaching career in the history of collegiate football," Moeser said. "Tom is truly a great coach, but even more, he is a person of great character. The Osborne legacy at Nebraska will be one of uncompromised excellence and integrity, a legacy that will affect the entire university."
NU President L. Dennis Smith shared Moeser's sentiment.
"When I came to the University of Nebraska, I was aware of (Osborne's) unparalleled reputation as a coach and his enormously successful record off the field," he said. "What I learned - as everyone who knows Tom personally has learned - is that he is a deeply humanitarian person. Along with his wife, Nancy, he has demonstrated in many ways that he sincerely cares about the student-athletes, and also that his concern extends to all young people."
Bill Byrne, director of Athletics, said Osborne's reputation attracted him to NU.
"We hate to lose Coach Osborne. He has done a remarkable job here," Byrne said. "He is a great leader of young minds and that's one of the main reasons why I wanted to come to Nebraska. Tom will be missed by all of Nebraska, particularly by our staff, coaches and athletes."
Moeser said he is confident that NU's tradition of success will continue under Solich.
"The strength of the Nebraska football program lies not only in Tom Osborne, but in the combined coaching staff. With the appointment of Coach Frank Solich as head coach, the culture of our football program will be maintained," he said. "I have every confidence that Coach Solich will continue not only the winning tradition of Nebraska football, but the unparalleled academic achievement and the unwavering integrity that have become the national hallmark of this program."
Osborne said he is assured of Nebraska's continued success.
"I have a lot of confidence in the people who are here - from the administration to Bill Byrne to coaches and the support staff," he said. "When you've got all that going for you, you're going to be fine."
Although he will no longer be the head coach of the Huskers after the Orange Bowl, Osborne will remain active in campus affairs. Moser said Osborne is interested in helping to raise funds for Love Library as part of Campaign Nebraska.
"This is another example of his commitment to academic excellence at the University of Nebraska."
When Ed Paquette moved from the Northwestern Alumni Association to the Nebraska Alumni Association last summer, he knew he was trading a newly successful athletic tradition for one where winning had become routine.
"At Northwestern, the football fans were literally starving for a bowl invitation. At Nebraska the 1998 Orange Bowl represents NU's 29th straight bowl appearance," said the executive director of the Nebraska Alumni Association. "The challenge at Nebraska is to provide alumni and fans with a brand-new bowl experience, with offerings they've not seen elsewhere."
That's why the alumni association accepted the challenge of hosting the official University of Nebraska Bowl Tour for the first time. "We're celebrating the achievements of Nebraska students, alumni and leaders, as well as Husker athletes," Paquette said.
A number of events that make the Dec. 29 to Jan. 3 tour different:
The alumni association tour also features traditional favorites such as a New Year's Eve party, a bowl parade, New Year's Day bowl-watching parties, a pre-game tailgate party and the Orange Bowl game.
Make tour reservations by calling 1-888-353-ALUM (472-4508 in Lincoln). Tickets to the variety show and pep concert also are available separately from the bowl package by calling the same number.
-Andrea Cranford, Alumni Association
May this holiday season be a timeof peace and joyfor you and yours. If you will be travelling, please travel safely.Let us also use this time of the yearto remember thosewho are less fortunate than we are.Let this be a timefor peace in the world and peace in our individual homes and hearts.
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Students will find 18 cworkstations and five printers in a new computer lab slated to open in January in the Love Library Link. There is a casualty for this progress, however: the card catalog will become recycled paper and the cardboxes shipped to Inventory for disposal at auction.
Joan Giesecke, dean of libraries, said every item in the card catalog has been transferred to the computerized IRIS system. The card catalog has not been maintained for five or six years, she said, and materials acquired in that time have not been placed on a paper card. Plus, she noted, the catalog is incomplete because some people remove cards for scratch paper, bookmarks or other non-standard uses.
"I guess it is as complete as a 100-year-old card catalog can be," she said.
For historical purposes, the special collections area will have a card catalog so people will be able to see and use the old system, she said.
Giesecke is not the least bit sentimental about the card catalog's demise, although she knows there will be those who disagree.
"Card catalogs are easily corrupted, unlike a computer system," she said. "The on-line system is flexible because you don't need to know exact spellings or titles. With a card catalog you could browse forever but if you had the wrong spelling you were doomed. The IRIS suggests alternative spellings and titles and lets you search by topic and contents notes.
"You can search from a remote site. Plus you have the circulation information there, so you can tell if the item is available, and put a hold on the material if you want."
She also noted that IRIS allows a user to browse items cataloged nearby the user's specified item, so the serendipity of browsing shelves is not lost.
"Automation is so much simpler; it has really pointed out the limitations of the card catalog," she said.
The last items to be added to the IRIS have been those cataloged by the Dewey Decimal System, Giesecke said. And use of Dewey items has increased since they came on-line. "It's much easier to use the historic collections now; it's nice to see those numbers go up," Giesecke said.
Nebraska is not unique in sending its card catalog to the library graveyard. As many libraries have found space and funding to put catalogs on line, they have scrapped the wooden boxes and millions of 3x5 inch cards. If the boxes are made of oak or other valuable wood, they are prized by antiques hunters, she said. Nebraska's are made of pine and birch, so their value is probably less.
Giesecke is excited by the prospect of the computer labs, which will allow students access to computers for the 96 hours per week the library is open.
Students will be able to do research and construct reports conveniently, she said. The labs will be staffed with computer support personnel and research libraries will be nearby to answer other questions.
Giesecke said a mini-lab with four computers has been running this semester and has been well received. She expects the larger lab to be heavily used.
The library will be disrupted during the holiday break as the card catalogs are removed, carpets cleaned and computers are installed. The cards will be removed for recycling beginning Dec. 16, she said.
In addition, the periodicals room will be closed during the holiday
break
as shelves are relocated to allow better access for those in wheelchairs
and to recarpet the area. Periodicals will be available from the
circulation
desk while the room is closed.
Saddam Hussein's recent hostile activities in the Persian Gulf brought renewed attention to a team of University of Nebraska scientists working on a technology to protect American soldiers during biological warfare.
Under the leadership of Mike Meagher, associate professor of food science and technology and biological systems engineering, the NU crew has developed the process for making a vaccine for one type of botulism, a deadly neurotoxin used in biological warfare.
With Hussein's history of using biological weapons such as botulism, the Iraqi leader recently stirred up international concern when he refused inspections by the United Nations.
"It's a known fact that Saddam Hussein has what are called 'bot bombs' - botulism bombs," Meagher says. Bot bombs are alarmingly easy to make and capable of mass destruction, he says, so the U.S. military was eager to counter such biological weapons with vaccines.
Well known for its fermentation laboratories and techniques, NU landed a contract with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease nearly three years ago. Based in the university's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Meagher and team worked for two years to develop the first vaccine, which is effective in mice. Human clinical trials will begin early in 1998 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland.
Botulism, a severe food poisoning, is caused by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. There are seven types of botulinum, and Meagher says he and his colleagues hope to speed up the process to develop vaccines for the other six strains within seven years.
"Now our motor's running," he says. "We've broken through the hurdles, and each of the strains is similar. We've got a template and we've got that experience to work from."
Meagher notes that while the process to create the vaccine was developed in NU laboratories, the vaccine will be manufactured elsewhere. No actual botulism toxin was ever on campus. Instead, the scientists created the vaccine using a harmless section of the toxin.
"You could eat this stuff and be fine. It's only part of the toxin," he says.
When the project began, the U.S. Army gave Meagher's team a culture containing the harmless first third of botoxin gene to ferment. During fermentation, several proteins are produced - one of which is key to creating a vaccine. That desired protein is then purified to minimize adverse reactions and injected into subjects.
Initial tests on lab mice were conducted last spring. Twenty mice were injected with the vaccine and a follow-up booster shot two weeks later. The mice were then given one million times the lethal dose of botoxin. All 20 mice survived.
The NU researchers' success has caught the attention of other entities interested in similar projects. In addition to working on vaccines for the remaining strains of botulism, Meagher recently has begun work on cancer vaccine for the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.
-Amy Cyphers
If the state's Rainwater Basin wetlands had a price tag, they would be worth nearly $13 million to Nebraskans, a University of Nebraska study shows.
Richard Perrin, agricultural economist in NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and graduate student Joan Poor of Lincoln found Nebraskans would be willing to pay $12.7 million to double the area of wetlands in the Rainwater Basin region.
The south central Nebraska wetland region is recognized internationally as an important stop on the North America waterfowl flyway.
At the turn of the century, Rainwater Basin wetlands covered about 100,000 acres. By the 1990s, this wetland area had dwindled to about 34,000 acres. Government agencies and advocacy groups support restoring the existing wetlands and adding 25,000 acres each of wetlands and adjacent uplands.
The study shows what Perrin and Poor call a "win-win" scenario for farmers and the public. If a government agency acquired and managed more acres of wetlands in the Rainwater Basin region, farmers could be compensated by at least the rental value of their cropland. Nebraska households would value the additional wetlands even more highly, Perrin said.
For example, 41,000 acres of wetlands habitat could be restored for $4.6 million annually. That's about one-third of the value Nebraskans surveyed indicated they would be willing to pay to enhance and increase migratory waterfowl habitat. The $4.6 million figure is based on a cash rental rate of $112 per irrigated crop acre Nebraska farmers currently receive for use of the land in crop production, he said.
In dollar terms, the net annual benefit of changing the land's use would be an estimated $8.1 million, Perrin said. That's the net of the $12.7 million value Nebraskans would put on the additional wetlands, minus the $4.6 million farmers would be compensated for giving up their annual crop production on these 41,000 acres.
The study's research method is somewhat controversial because it indicates only what people say they are willing to pay, not what they might actually pay, he pointed out. However, it provides an estimate policy makers can use to evaluate support for expanding wetlands, he said.
"It's not a completely satisfactory way to find out, but there isn't any other way," Perrin said.
Perrin and Poor mailed surveys to 2,400 Nebraska households in 1996. About half of those queried responded.
Campers, birdwatchers, contributors to environmental organizations, people with higher income or education levels and Rainwater Basin visitors were most likely be willing to pay for restoring the region's wetlands, the study found.
Retirees, residents of large households, Rainwater Basin residents and those with agriculture income were least likely to be willing to pay for restoring basin wetlands.
On average, respondents were willing to pay about $21 annually to restore the Rainwater Basin. Nearly one-third - 29.29 percent - were unwilling to pay anything. A tiny portion - 3.34 percent - said they would be willing to pay more than $150 per year.
Traditionally, environmental amenities such as clean air and water have not carried price tags, Perrin said. Researchers around the country are trying to attach dollar values to such amenities because "it's hard to come up with good public policy without knowing how much people value such resources," he said.
The Rainwater Basin study's goal is to provide research-based information for Nebraskans, Perrin said. The research was not performed with any preconceived agenda, he said.
The research was conducted in cooperation with IANR's Agricultural Research Division.
- Molly Klocksin, IANR news writer
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