UNLimited Sports Magazine - Vol. 2, Issue No. 2 by UNLimited Sports

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Tim Verghese Photo

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The Tip-off

CO N T E N TS UNLim ited Sp orts M A G A Z I N E - V O L . 0 2 I S S U E 0 2

52 38 THE KATE SMITH SHOW: Soaking up the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and more

42 BASEBALLING:

Taylor Schendt works out at CKO Kickboxing in March 2020 in Lincoln.

Is Nebraska the next baseball state?

A WEEK IN THE LIFE: EDITOR EDITION Senior Tim Hofmann manages school and work at New Mexico State University

72 HUSKER BASEBALL:

Nebraska baseball team has a lot to celebrate

INTERNATIONAL HUSKERS

Over 3,000 students from 114 countries call Nebraska home.

HISTORY CLASS: Hear Jerry Shoecraft, Terry Harris and Kent Pavelka on their 1982 memories.

Ben Skow media Photo

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U N Lim ited Sports SPRING 2021 M A N AG I N G E D I TO R Tim Hofmann J O U R N A L I STS Jacob Benson Brock Birkholtz Annie Gellott Christian Horn Austin Kingsley Brennan Merkle Ethan Petrik Will Wilson P H OTO Benjamin Skow Timothy Verghese VIDEO Francesca D’Orazi Benjamin Gilg Benjamin Skow DESIGN Michaela Scheinin Denny Nguyen

CoJMC’s first online student-run sports publication for the best stories in sports that you’ve never heard about before.

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Ben Skow media Photo

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The Tip-off

Ben Skow media Photos

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Girls 18s Junior National Championship on Sunday, April 25, 2021 in Omaha. Austin Kingsley photos

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Austin Kingsley Photos

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The Tip-off

Editor’s Letter To my peers: Congratulations, you made it through one of the hardest years of your life. There were times where you may have felt you weren’t going to make it. What was the point? An extra week of Spring Break turned into hundreds of Zoom calls. You didn’t get a chance to go to that dream internship you wanted. Everything stood still, but here you are. Now more than ever, we have realized how powerful sports can be. Everyone continues to realize they have a voice. Look at the change that happened in just 24 hours at the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Change happened 60 miles down the road in Omaha. Change is good. I am writing this from 900 miles away in the wasteland that is New Mexico. Why? Well, change is good. You can look back at the past year and find every reason to complain, and frankly, you would have a really good reason to. I would encourage you to look back on this past year and find the good. I know there’s good that has happened this past year. Some of you grew as people. Some of you found innovative and crazy ways to improve your craft, and some of you just made it through. You’re still in school. You’re trying your best, and you made it. That’s a pretty dang good accomplishment.

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I consider myself lucky. I landed a job in January, which has taken some of the stress off my shoulders of trying to find a job after college. My heart makes a little jump when I see one of my friends or peers land the postgraduation job. Each job is a new adventure and a stepping stone toward the dream job that we all work for. Look through UNLimited Sports Magazine. There is so much talent on every page. Every single page was created by us. The stories in this magazine have a little bit of everything. Some look back at one of the biggest upsets in Nebraska basketball history. We found out what life was like in the bubble from the Vice President of Operations in the NBA. What happened to downtown Omaha without the city’s biggest event in 2020? We have the answers to that, too. This our work. Sit back and grab an adult beverage and be proud of the work you put in. You made it through one of the toughest times of your life. Here’s to the next chapter.

- Tim Hofmann Class of 2021

The Bay

is Dedicated to providing economically and culturally disadvantaged youth with the belonging and purpose they need to grow and reinvest in their community. UNLimited_5.21

The Bay, founded in 2010, is a place for anyone and everyone to hang out. It’s A place to fit in and feel like you are welcome. Located at 2005 Y St, The Bay is home to a group of skaters who come and practice what they love.

LIKE COFFEE? The skate park also connects to a small coffee shop where skaters can go and take a break. The bay creates an atmosphere that makes you not want to leave.

open to all levels

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THE BAY ATTRACTS many regulars WHO have created a friendship that is centered around their love for skating. UNLimited_5.21

Airborne skater attempting a trick at The Bay’s indoor skate park. Ben Skow media Photo

Q&A At the Bay by: Brennan merkle Caden Pearson has always

Q: What does “The Future Belongs to the Misfits” mean? A: Growing up, we were all misfits. We all started in small towns and were a bit disconnected from the rest of the community. Skaters and dirt bikers in a football town, that sort of thing. Not everybody fits into the normal stuff, we tried to make that our motto here.

One of the main attractions at The Bay, which offers a wide range of youth services, including digital art lessons, is an inside skate park, which is never short of skaters. The building, at 2005 Y Street, is also connected to a local coffee shop fort a drink or bite to eat between sessions.

Q: So, how was The Bay started? A: The Bay was first started in late 2010 at the Gateway Mall here in Lincoln. The skate park here on Y Street was opened in 2013 and was mostly just a skate park until 2016 when the coffee shop and venue opened up. We were the ones running the coffee shop until March 2020, we teamed up with Goldenrod Pastries – so they took over the café. The Rabble Mill merger happened in 2018.

had a passion for helping out his community in many ways. As general manager at The Bay, a Lincoln nonprofit organization, giving back is a big part of his life.

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Q: What exactly is Rabble Mill? A: Rabble Mill is essentially an umbrella

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nonprofit. Back in 2018, another nonprofit called Hear Nebraska was founded in Omaha by Andy Norman. Andy teamed up with Mike Smith, who originally founded The Bay, both of whom grew up together. Both were involved with a lot of local photojournalism and music and realized quickly they were both walking into a lot of the same funding. Since we all knew each other, it made a lot of sense to merge. It’s an umbrella profit for other involvements like Skate for Change and Rabble Media. Q: Could you explain more about those two other nonprofits? A: Skate for Change is more of an idea than a nonprofit. When founder Mike Smith would skate around downtown with just his board and a backpack full of either socks, water or sandwiches, a couple of his friends started taking notice, then all of a sudden one day, they had 60 people on skateboards riding through the city handing out water bottles and socks to people. It’s grown to a global level – there’s more than 100 chapters worldwide. It’s really just about skaters giving back to their communities and rebutting the idea that skateboarders are only causing trouble. On the other hand, Rabble Media is for-youth by-youth with a publication magazine that’s located here in our digital arts lab at The Bay. They made a lot of voter guides and helped advocate for social issues. Q: Rabble Mill was outspoken on a lot of social issues this past year, especially when it came to promoting voting among the younger generations. Was The Bay actively involved in that promotion? A: We wanted to spread the message on getting the younger demographic that can vote, involved in voting – no matter who they’re voting for. We think it’s really important that they’re using their voice and continue to talk about things they believe really matter. Q: How did you get involved with The Bay? A: My older brother, Shayne, started working with The Bay when they were first at Gateway Mall. He fell in love with the idea immediately. All throughout high school, I would leave our town during the weekends and drive up to Lincoln to 26 UNLimited_5.21

help volunteer, then I’d just crash on my brother’s couch. I started part-time in 2018, focusing on our All-Access Pass program, which is basically a free ticket to anything we do here for those who aren’t able to pay for sessions. In 2020, I became communities manager where I worked with local organizations and partnerships. Just a couple weeks ago, I became general manager here at The Bay. Q: What’s your favorite part of the journey? A: I’ve always been a firm believer in connecting people with opportunities. I think that so many people need an opportunity, but each one might look different. Through The Bay, we’ve been able to build a lot of really positive connections with a lot of social services here in Lincoln, like Food Bank and CenterPointe. We’ve been able to have a really special connection with the kids where they trust us to step in and connect them to these services that can provide tangible needs. There’s always been this unofficial social work side of The Bay just from the nature of the neighborhood we’re in and the people we serve. Helping people in those ways is what I’m super passionate about. It’s really special to give other kids, who just like me, didn’t fit in with what they had – a space to be themselves.

“So many people need an opportunity, but each one might look different.” - Caden Pearson

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Texas Stars head coach, Mike West, speaks to a group of linemen at Iron Will Training Systems LLC on Saturday, March 20, in Magnolia, Texas.

Strength and skills trainer, Cisco Marentez, talks to Houston signee, Alton McCaskill, and The Woodlands linebacker, Martrell Harris Jr.

Gerry Hamilton speaks with Carthage fourstar linebacker, Kip Lewis, at the Under Armour All-American Camp on Sunday, March 14, in Arlington, Texas. 28 UNLimited_5.21

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g i b go

BREAD

husker pride delivered to your door runza.com/shop Texas Stars coach, Algernon Smith, coaches up at the Stars’ offense at Memorial Middle School on Sunday, march 7 in Houston. 30 UNLimited_5.21

www.runza.com

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Courtesy of Flagship Restaurant Group

Omaha Businesses Prepare for return of College World Series Words: Christian Horn

ost years, on any given night during a two-week period in June, anyone patrolling the grounds of TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska, will hear the familiar metallic ping of a baseball bat meeting the baseball, see the giant inflatable beach balls bouncing around from person to person in the stands or witness the taunting match among fans sitting in the outfield: “LEFT FIELD SUCKS!” “RIGHT FIELD SUCKS!” Each summer, Omaha transforms into the pinnacle of college baseball when it hosts the College World Series. From 1950 through 2010, the sport’s annual eight-team, double-elimination slug fest to determine the national champion, took place inside the historic Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, located next to the Henry Doorly Zoo. When the CWS moved downtown to TD Ameritrade Park in 2011, many of the event’s traditions came with it. The

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annual pilgrimage to Omaha is a rite of passage for college baseball fans across the country, and locals often join in on the festivities. For a two-week stretch each summer, TD Ameritrade Park springs to life. Locals, casual baseball fans and fans of the qualifying teams all converge on the stadium, creating a vibrant atmosphere bustling with energy. That didn’t happen last June when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of sports across the country. Instead of spending two summer weeks filled to the brim with cheering fans, TD Ameritrade Park sat silent. However, for its host city of Omaha, the CWS cancellation marked more than just the loss of a collegiate baseball championship — it dealt a serious blow to the city’s economy. UNLimited_5.21

For Blatt Beer & Table — a local pub and craft beer bar with three Omaha locations, including one across the street from TD Ameritrade Park — business from the CWS comprises about 60% of annual revenue, according to COO and owner, Anthony Hitchcock.

to create the overall economic impact on the city, according to Feng.

Finding alternate ways to recoup that much revenue was an impossible task. Hitchcock said the location near TD Ameritrade Park is mostly driven by tourism and business travelers, so the pandemic caused a big financial strain because people weren’t traveling. He added that the government’s Paycheck Protection Program may help the company recover some of that lost revenue, but most of it won’t be made up.

“Put yourself in their shoes,” Feng said. “If you just lost that income for 2020, what are you going to do? At a minimum, you’re going to cut your spending. You’re going to go out for dining less and you may not want to operate some electronics for your house, so on and so forth.”

“There were no events or business travelers, so we weren’t able to make it up at all,” he said. “From a day-to-day business standpoint, it was impossible.” The loss stung more than just businesses near the ballpark; it affected Omaha as a whole. The 2019 CWS produced $88.3 million in total economic impact to the city, a combined $8.7 million in tax collections — $5.2 million at the local level and $3.5 million at the state level, according to a study from the College World Series of Omaha, the event’s local organizing committee. Zhigang Feng, Ph.D., associate professor of economics at Creighton University, said the loss led to a “cascade effect” on the city’s economy. The initial stage, the cancellation of the event itself, results in a relatively minimal economic impact — the only real losses are lost revenue resulting from things like ticket sales or concessions within the stadium.

Any lost revenue means a loss of income, which could translate to lower spending habits. In turn, that impacts other businesses within the city.

Omaha felt the blow from last year’s CWS cancellation in other ways, too. Ernest Goss, Ph.D., professor of economics at Creighton, led the College World Series of Omaha’s study on the event’s economic impact on the city. According to Goss, Omaha missed out on the annual exposure the CWS brings to the city. “It’s not just the loss of revenue,” he said. “You’ve got the loss of visibility that the College World Series brings. That impact is as much as $200-$400 million as measured by public relations impacts. It’s measured by the public relations firm that does the College World Series.” In 2021, the Omaha economy should benefit from the return of the CWS. However, its overall impact may be limited due to reduced attendance this season. On April 23, the NCAA announced a 50% attendance capacity for all outdoor spring championships. Despite restrictions, businesses around TD Ameritrade Park predict sales similar to

The real economic impact comes in the second stage; in 2019, 59% of attendees came from outside Nebraska, and season ticket holders to the event reside in 45 different states, according to the CWS study.

past years. Hitchcock noted that while the NCAA trumps the city as far as attendance inside TD Ameritrade Park, it doesn’t influence the businesses near the stadium, which fall under the jurisdiction of the mayor and the governor. Currently, he said, restaurants are operating from anywhere from 80& capacity to full capacity. “Even if they say 50% capacity in the stadium, I have a feeling that the grounds around the stadium are still going to probably be at about 80 or 90% of what they were in 2019,” Hitchcock said. “I have a feeling there will be families and children, a lot of locals still in the area, taking part in activities. We’re certainly optimistic.” June is typically a strong month for Blatt anyway, Hitchcock said, and the usual increase in foot traffic during the warmer weather should return as the vaccine becomes more readily available and things begin to open up postpandemic.

With so many people traveling to Omaha, much of the event’s economic impact on the city comes from travelrelated costs — rental cars, motel rooms, dining. The lost revenue from the event itself and the lost revenue from travel-related costs combine

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Courtesy of Flagship Restaurant Group

The company opens Zesto’s, its ice cream window during the summer, which provides another source of revenue. The walk-up window used to be on the south

side of the building, but after a remodeling effort enlarged the facility and created increased space inside the building, the window moved to the north side, which Hitchcock said is an access entry point to TD Ameritrade Park. All these factors figure to combine for a strong June, even if the CWS doesn’t operate at full capacity. “I don’t think we’ll see the same sales we saw in 2019, but we’ll be happy to do 70% of that,” Hitchcock said. “I think that’s an attainable number.” While Goss said he didn’t think businesses needed to worry about dealing with another pandemic while preparing for the CWS, he did caution that the event has faced disruptions in the past. In 2011, for example, the city faced flooding concerns prior to the start of the CWS. “Businesses have to have plans in place for ‘What happens if there’s flooding this year’ or ‘What if the NCAA limits attendance,’” Goss said. “You have to have those contingency plans in place, and that’s particularly the case for those in leisure or hospitality — that would be restaurants and

hotels — where the direct impact is very significant.” Despite the financial hit the pandemic dealt to businesses, Hitchcock said the past year offered an opportunity to learn and adjust the way business is done. Blatt now offers delivery and online ordering, for example, providing consumers with additional avenues to buy their product. Sales from online and delivery orders are incremental because third parties take a cut of the profit, but it’s better than selling nothing, he said. Perhaps more importantly, Hitchcock said the pandemic forced improvements on the health and safety front. They started running wellness checks for employees, something he admitted probably should have been in place before the pandemic and will continue once things have returned to normal. “Being prepared for such a situation, financially and mentally, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a reserve set aside and you’re mentally prepared for a crisis like this,” he said, “because in our lifetime, it may happen again.”

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Vegan Diets and Various Trends: questions about athlete nutrition Words: Annie Gellott

any things have been missing from college sports this year. Stadiums lie barren and when picturing an athlete in incredible shape, the first thing most people think of is the sport the athlete performs in to maintain their physique. They’ll think of all the long days and the many hours the athlete has invested in training for their sport. But the most essential foundation to an athlete’s body is nutrition. As athletics have evolved throughout the years, nutrition science has, too. As a result, specific diets can now treat and prevent some injuries as well as help the recovery process. Through studying different nutrients’ effects on the body, scientists have been able to recommend specific diets for elite athletes. In most cases, this leads to basic nutrition protocols producing great athletic performances. However, in the social media world, some athletes have started following diet trends that may lack research or hinder their performance. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s performance nutrition program takes a three-step approach to diets: boosting the immune system with produce, fueling muscles with carbohydrates and resolving muscle soreness with protein. Dave Ellis, Nebraska’s director of performance nutrition, said the program’s goal is to get students into a routine where they seek these things out in a timely fashion. “To make sure the

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Dave Ellis via huskers.com

athletes know how to build quality meals and have a smart pattern over the course of the day,” he said. Ellis, who also worked in professional sports and in the private sector as a consultant, began efforts to teach students about nutrition while they are in school. Nebraska now includes a Life Skills Kitchen in which athletes have a chance to learn cooking skills for themselves. But new diet trends are catching on at Nebraska, especially diets promoted by high-profile student-athletes. One of the biggest diet trends is veganism. Promoted by New England Patriots’ Cam Newton, vegan diets are becoming a highly debated topic in athletic nutrition. Newton went vegan two years ago and remains adamant that going plant-based has improved his athletic performance. April Post, a 22-year-old senior nutrition, exercise and health sciences major and performance nutrition Intern for Nebraska Athletics, said she is particularly interested in studying the effects of meat and dairy on an athlete’s body. “In Nebraska, I really think people don’t want to hear it, and it’s really a ‘ignorance is bliss’ thing because meat obviously has the benefits of protein, but they’re ignoring the fact that there is a healthier option,” Post said. “If you look at any of the research, there is absolutely nothing that will tell you that an animal-based protein in any way leads to better performance than a plant-based protein. They are chemically, biologically and biochemically composed of the same amino acids. They are going to be digested the same way in the body except that the plant-based protein doesn’t have the cholesterol and fat and some of the other things that the animal does.” In September 2020, The Boston Globe published a story on Newton’s vegan diet and concern for a lack of all nine amino acids in a vegan diet.

perform with more power.” Ellis, however, thinks dairy is an essential part of an athlete’s balanced diet. “Inflammation is a natural part of life. You want an immune system that can have a very robust response when there is an insult,” Ellis said. “If you take every elimination diet that’s out there and you take every one of their stories that vilifies food in a categorical fashion, what would you be left with if they were all true? You wouldn’t have anything to eat.” As for now, research remains ambivalent over the plant-based diet’s effect on athletic performance.

“Results from observational and shortterm intervention studies in which subjects consumed vegetarian or non-vegetarian diets for test periods of several weeks have detected no difference in strength/power, aerobic and anaerobic performance parameters based on the presence or absence of animal-derived (mostly fleshy) foods,” according to the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Another one of the hottest diet trends in the game seems to be Tom Brady’s TB12 diet, which Brady calls ‘commonsensical’ consists of roughly 20 percent animal-based foods, according to the TB12 website. This follows Brady’s 80/20 rule: 80 percent of the plate should be vegetables while 20 percent is a lean meat. Brady’s diet sticks to unprocessed foods (as much as possible), drinking half your weight in fluid ounces of water each day and stopping the eating when you’re 75 percent full.

courtesy Photo: @husker _ nutrition: “Working on some recipes w/ @laurynbille for our student athletes”

When Ellis first met Brady, he said Brady had not subscribed to any kind of elimination diet. ‘So somewhere along the way, someone talked him into it and that this would be something to help his longevity,” Ellis said “While the man has had fabulous longevity, I can’t honestly say that what he’s pushing was a part of the longevity as much as the way he manages his body. He could be describing benefits that come from a restriction pattern that, in reality, didn’t really yield the outcomes that he thinks.” While Brady may personally believe his diet has contributed to his athletic performance, it is worth noting that no research can conclusively prove diet is the sole reason for his success. It is also worth noting that Brady sells products promoting the TB12 diet. “It’s kind of a shocker that he did it, but he did it,” Ellis said. “That’s what happens with athletes sometimes when they put their trust in a guru and whether that guru has got all the recommendations buttoned up or not is certainly debatable.” Ellis believes he may know why scientists promote diet trends. “If I’m selling a book, it puts money in my pocket to spend my time finding claims to reinforce my diet because it pushes my product,” he said. No matter the trend or from where they come, these diets seem to be attributable to society’s overall lack of knowledge on nutrition.

“The most important thing when it comes to a plant-based diet is diversity,” Post said. “All you have to do is pair any legume with a carb, and you have all nine amino acids.” There is research backing Post’s claims:

‘Nutrition is an incredibly dense and complicated thing,” Post said, “and the general population doesn’t have an introductory-level knowledge about it.”

“There is little evidence to suggest that the protein requirements for athletes following vegetarian diets are different from those following omnivorous diets, particularly given the large range suggested by the current protein requirements for athletes,” according to the Gatorade Sports Science Institute SSE #188.

“Inherently, dairy is an inflammatory,” Post said. “Meat and dairy are exclusively where cholesterol and animal fat are in our foods and it clogs the blood. The space cholesterol takes up takes away from the space that could be filled with oxygen. With more oxygen you can perform greater and The Lewis Training Table first opened in 1985 and offers lunch and dinner meals for student-athletes via Huskers.com

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The Kate Smith sHow: Senior Soaks up Playing Augusta National Women’s Amateur and More Words: Will Wilson

ounds of birds chirping through the spring Georgia air welcomed fans to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in March. Kate Smith was enjoying it, too, leading the competition at Champions Retreat Golf Club. She was on a roll, but a storm quickly moved into the area and everything on hold. Smith, a fifth-year senior on the Nebraska women’s golf team, led the second-ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur after 11 holes with a score of four-under-par. Everything was clicking. “I hit some really good shots on pretty tough holes and made the putts, which was great. I birdied number five, which is probably one of the hardest holes on the course,” Smith said. “Just some of those, you’re thinking ‘OK, that’s two shots on the field right there.’” After making par on number eight, Smith and her caddy, Karter, also her older brother, were shocked when they realized her score was tied for the lead. “I got up to nine, and I looked at the leaderboard. I was two-under at that point and I saw one-under was fourth on the leaderboard. I said ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m in a good position,’” Smith said. “Then, I turned around and made a birdie on nine.” One week prior to the start of this year’s tournament, Smith grabbed her first collegiate title at the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate on April 7. Days later, Smith was

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leading a 72-player field consisting of the top college-aged amateurs in the world and trying to be the first champion since Jennifer Kupcho who won the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019. The 2020 tournament was cancelled due to COVID.

their daughter compete. The first two rounds of the tournament are held at the Champions Retreat Golf Club, which is about 30 minutes away from Augusta National. Only players who make the cut after the second round get to play their third round at Augusta National.

It wasn’t an easy process getting to the tournament with pandemic precautions for all players, staff and spectators. The possibility of playing Augusta National wasn’t making Smith nervous, testing negative for COVID was.

When Smith was walking through Champions Retreat for the first time, it hit her; she was on the big stage.

“I think we (Smith’s caddy/brother) were both a little quiet because we knew when we landed we had to get COVID tested,” Smith said. “A few days leading up to the tournament, a couple girls from Texas tested positive and had to back out of the event, so I think the COVID tests were making us pretty nervous. We were just hoping to get cleared so then we could talk about the week to come.”

“It was almost like her mindset throughout the week was that she was just grateful to be there,” Karter said. The two siblings tested negative and so did their parents, Kris and Margery, who drove down from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota to watch

“Champions Retreat is one of the nicest facilities I’ve ever been to, so it definitely makes for a great week. I think a lot of the media gives the tournament a hard time because not all three rounds are played at Augusta, but they took care of us pretty well,” Smith said. “They have a wonderful practice facility, and it’s kind of set up like a tour event. They had brand new Pro V1 golf balls everywhere and ropes around all the practice facilities. It was like, OK, we arrived.” Back in February, Smith told UNLimited Sports that her mentality heading into the tournament was to simply embrace the moment and control what she could control. Her brother noticed that heading in. “It was almost like her mindset throughout the week was that she was just grateful to be there,” Karter said. Smith was ready to embrace the moment, but when she showed up to Champions Retreat for her opening round Wednesday

Courtesy photo

morning, she had a certain type of chip on her shoulder. “I was having that underdog feeling because during the practice rounds and during the first round, the cameras follow around certain girls and want certain interviews,” Smith said. “It was nice because no one was expecting anything from me, so I got to just go out and have fun.” Smith was enjoying her time in Georgia as she found herself tied for the lead after eight holes in the first round. The national media members were now scrambling to find out which hole she was on. “She seemed to make every consequential putt, including a couple others for birdie,” Smith’s father, Kris, said. “After she birdied nine, I told my wife, ‘Man, the cameras are going to be out here pretty soon.’” Sure enough, minutes later, they arrived.

“I was getting to 10 and I saw Kay Cockerill, Amanda Balionis and all these sports writers. I was like, ‘Ah, this is so cool,’” Smith said. “Then I made a birdie on 10. I felt like I was living my dream. However that round ended, I was gonna be happy.” “It was like the paparazzi showed up,” Karter added. Karsin believes he makes a good caddy for his sister because he knows her on a personal level and he knows her game. But because of the environment his sister was competing in, her performance during that first round was something he had never seen before.

into the final stretch. Things were looking good until some rain started moving into the area. “On hole 12, I hit my iron into the green, and then they said, ‘You have five minutes to play,’” Smith said. “I hit my putt on that hole, then she said, ‘You have 30 seconds to play.’ I didn’t want to rush my par putt, so I chose to just wait until she blew the horn.” Play was officially suspended at 4:32 p.m. It was pouring rain. A room inside the clubhouse was overflowing with 72 of the top amateur golfers and their caddies. Only one person had a better score than everyone in that room. That person was Kate Smith.

“I’ve seen her play golf like that before, but on that difficult of a golf course and on that stage, obviously I’d never seen it,” Karter said. “She was just on top of her game.”

“The weird thing for me was a lot of people were looking at me and usually no one really knows me,” she said chuckling. “I checked my phone and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have a three-shot lead.’”

Coming off a par on hole 11, Smith had some momentum heading

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Smith started her second round at 12:50 p.m. on Thursday. She ended up shooting a seven-over 79 to put her tied for eleventh. The top 30 players move on to the final round at Augusta National on Saturday, and there was one spot left in the top 30. Smith along with four other players, were put into a five-person playoff for the final spot. “It’s kind of a weird situation because you can have people eliminated on the first hole, but then you can also have no winner until you play a few more holes,” Smith explained. “I’ve been in those types of playoffs before. They’re not ever that fun, and at this caliber, I knew going in that a birdie was going to win.”

Courtesy photo @99kate_smith

was going to resume Thursday morning. Smith woke up the next morning at 5:15 a.m. and later headed to Champions Retreat to begin what would be a long day of golf. “In golf, it’s always about the expectations, and I was trying to have the expectation that things were going to keep going and that I was gonna keep making birdies,” Smith said. “I was also being realistic with myself by understanding that the back side is tough. It’s 45 degrees out right now; things might not go the same.” Smith made her par putt on 11 to keep her score at four-under but she wasn’t able to continue her hot play from Wednesday and finished the first round tied for fifth after making four bogeys. “She was coming into a pretty difficult stretch of golf - those six holes,” Karter said. “I think the combination of the added pressure, the conditions and the difficulty is why she fell back a few in those final six holes.”

Smith was right, as Maja Stark out of Sweden was the only player who made birdie out of the five, which sent her to the final round. The past few days were like a rollercoaster for Smith, and thinking back on it, she might have regretted one thing. “Going into the second round, I was fifth, I was still in contention, by no means did I think I was gonna have to fight to make the cut at that point. That’s tough looking back,” Smith said. “Yeah, it would’ve been a lot easier if I just told myself, ‘Hey, just shoot 76 then we’ll go to Augusta on Saturday,’ but I felt like I was in contention and I could win the tournament. I was trying to give myself opportunities to do that and the course was really tough that afternoon.” Even though Smith didn’t move

on to the final round at Augusta National, she still fulfilled her dream of playing Augusta. “It was awesome and definitely an experience of a lifetime, but I got to have hope that there’s another day that will have an awesome golf experience ahead of me as well.” “On Friday, all the players got to play a practice round at Augusta. I played all the holes, I got a local caddie, I was there,” Smith said. “That’s probably going to go down as one of the best days of my life.” It was also special for Smith’s parents to be there with her during that experience. “It was so special and so cool,” Kris said. “She’s gonna be in the top 1% of women to play Augusta National in their lifetime. It’s just a very cool thing to put on her resume.” Smith said she birdied holes seven and 15 while breaking 80 at Augusta National. She was done playing golf for the week but that didn’t mean her time in Georgia had come to an end quite yet. “They book our flights so that we can stay to watch or to play, so I got to watch on Saturday,” Smith said. “The first 20 minutes were hard because I wanted to be out there playing, but I also got to spend the day at Augusta National watching great golf. So I got over it pretty fast.”

Start Here. Go Anywhere. “The College of Journalism and Mass Communications made me the confident reporter I am today. The professors pushed me in the classroom every day and made sure the stories I told were compelling and moving. From editing to interviews and being confident in front of the camera, I now get to showcase all the skills I learned in Andersen Hall right in my profession.”

Allie Snow ’20, KLKN reporter and photojournalist

Japan’s Tsubasa Kajitani, 17, ended up winning the tournament after defeating Emilia Migliaccio in a suddendeath playoff.

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Inside the rise of Baseball in Nebraska Words: Christian Horn For Luke Jessen, it all started in the backyard. In the blistering Nebraska heat, Jessen and his father, Blake, spent countless hours outside where the soft thud of the baseball smacking into the glove provided the soundtrack to their work. During the winter, father and son moved into the garage, hitting off a tee into the net. Here, working on drills with his dad — a former Division III player who set the single-season on-base percentage record in 1993 as a senior for Central College in Pella, Iowa — a spark ignited within Jessen. “I fell in love with the game as a young kid, and that’s never changed,” Jessen said. His successful competitive career began at age 4 pitching and playing first base. When he was 12, he won a youth championship. As a freshman, he won a junior varsity state championship. During his sophomore year, his summer team traveled to a tournament in Atlanta and recorded a top-15 finish out of around 400 teams. Now at Elkhorn South High School, Jessen plays outfield. Two years ago, during the fall of his sophomore year, he started getting attention on the recruiting trail, speaking with Nebraska’s head baseball coach Darin Erstad’s staff. That winter, Jessen landed his first offer from Wichita State. Things slowed down for the next few months, but when spring rolled around, momentum on the recruiting trail picked up. Aside from Wichita State, notable teams on Jessen’s list included Creighton, Michigan State, Kansas State, Houston, Missouri, Oregon and Nebraska. During the summer of 2019, the winds of change

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blew through Lincoln. On June 3, Erstad resigned to spend more time with his family. On June 14, the Huskers tabbed Will Bolt as Erstad’s replacement. With a new era of Nebraska baseball dawning, Jessen bought in. He committed to the Huskers on Sept. 13. “I love the coaching staff,” Jessen said. “I got along with all of them really well, and I felt like we could do something special in Lincoln if I got me and a few others to go down there.” Jessen isn’t the only Nebraska product who believes in Bolt’s vision. Of the 14 prospects in the 2021 recruiting class, nine are in-state players. In particular, Bolt and his staff found success with the top Nebraska talent; seven of the state’s top 10 prospects pledged to the Huskers. “I think Husker baseball is going to be doing a lot of great things in the next few years, and I think they’re doing a good job letting all the other guys know that’s going to happen,” Jessen said. It’s not just one program producing a lot of talent, either. Six schools contributed to Nebraska baseball’s top in-state prospects; Elkhorn South, Elkhorn, Millard West, Millard South, Norris and Lincoln Southwest. Of those, Elkhorn is the only one with more than one top prospect committed to the Huskers

WIll Stone Photos

Elkhorn’s head coach, Kyle McCright, has led his team to a successful run since taking over in 2016. The Antlers won the Class B state title during McCright’s first season and then reached the state tournament again in each of the next three seasons before the pandemic cancelled the tournament last year.

He chose Nebraska over offers from Creighton, Wichita State, Kansas State, Houston, Missouri, Oregon and Michigan State. Photo courtesy of Luke Jessen

McCright, who coaches both varsity and Legion teams in Elkhorn, has long been a figure in Nebraska baseball, playing high school ball at Columbus in the early 2000s and collegiately at Midland in Fremont. He took a job as an assistant at Elkhorn for a season in 2009 before becoming the junior varsity head coach, a position he held until becoming the head coach in 2016. McCright said he didn’t initially plan on coaching or teaching because his sister was a teacher. However, after spending some time job shadowing, he decided coaching felt natural.

Huskers Baseball commit Luke Jessen found a passion for the game at a young age.

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“It’s fun to enjoy the game and be outside,” he said. “The painted lines, the sunshine -- everything like that is relaxing. It doesn’t feel like work.” This year, the Antlers feature four Division I commits: right-handed pitcher Drew Christo and third baseman Kyler Randazzo pledged to Nebraska, while another pair of right-handers — Malakai Vetock and junior Benjamin Ayala — committed to Creighton. Fewer than five miles away, head coach Brandon Dahl has Elkhorn South on a roll. Like McCright, Dahl is a Nebraska lifer, having played at Millard West High School and the University of Nebraska Omaha. Hired in 2013, Dahl successfully guided Elkhorn South’s transition from Class B to Class A in 2018, and the Storm have made the state tournament every year since 2015. Jessen is Elkhorn South’s lone Nebraska commit, but the Storm have several other players committed to play collegiately. Notably, catcher Hogan Helligso committed to Creighton while a pair of sophomores pledged to SEC schools — Cole Eaton to Tennessee and Eli Small to Kentucky. In 2018, Elkhorn South became the second-smallest Class A school after it transitioned from Class B. Despite the move, the program found continued success, reaching the Class A state tournament during its debut season. In 2019, Elkhorn South went 19-3 and was the No. 1 seed in the state tournament. “We’re also a closed district, so kids can’t opt into our school,” Dahl said. “They have to live within our boundary. Being the second-smallest school in Class A and not being an open-enrollment school, that’s something we’re pretty proud about.” Another Nebraska school producing Division I talent is Millard West. The Wildcats have made the state tournament 13 consecutive years and won the Class A title in 2019 under head coach Steven Frey, McCright’s predecessor at Elkhorn, who came to Millard West in 2016. Max Anderson, a freshman infielder for the Huskers, played at Millard West before starting all 15 games for Nebraeska in 2021, batting .321 with two doubles, four home runs and 15 runs batted in. He’s also drawn eight walks with only nine strikeouts for a .400 on-base percentage. In future recruiting classes, two of Anderson’s former teammates are slated to join him in Lincoln — right-

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handed pitcher Corbin Hawkins and junior righty Sam Novotny. The Wildcats’ roster features a Kansas State commit and a pair of juniors pledged to Creighton. Nebraska baseball’s current recruiting class also features Millard South’s Matthew Guthmiller and Lincoln Southwest’s Max Peterson. According to Lincoln Southwest head coach Mitchell Vernon, in his fifth year with the team and 12th overall, the biggest change between now and a decade ago is how hard players are throwing the ball. “I think you see it in pro baseball right now, everybody’s chasing velocity off the bump and the trickle-down effect is definitely taking shape in high school baseball in Nebraska,” he said. “There’s so many guys throwing so much harder than I ever remember as a whole across the state.” With talent scattered across Nebraska, baseball’s reputation as a warm-weather sport appears to be changing. One reason could be that an increasing number of training facilities in areas like the Midwest helps narrow the talent gap between places like Nebraska and Texas and makes it easier to offset the weather disadvantage in Midwestern states, according to McCright. Dahl and Frey both pinpointed an increasing number of travel teams within Nebraska as another

“There’s so many guys throwing so much harder than I ever remember as a whole across the state.” - Mitchell Vernon

reason for the improved state of play. “When I first started, there were no travel teams whatsoever,” Frey said. “They’re playing a lot more. A lot of the kids who are playing aren’t really kids who are burning out. They love baseball, they love having the chance to play somewhere, and a lot of our teams, these kids are playing teams across the country where I think they’re realizing they’re just as good as some of these other players.” Another factor could be the prominence of Legion baseball in Nebraska, which provides another opportunity for players aged 13-19 to compete. The program, founded by the American Legion in 1925 as a way to further its commitment to community service, receives a significant amount of funding from Major League Baseball; more than half of the current MLB players participated in Legion baseball at some point. “Legion baseball has always been king,” Dahl said. “The summer stuff is starting to get a little bit bigger, but I also think they can both intermix together with how much talent is in the state.”

Millard West head coach, Steven Frey, with 25 years of coaching experience, is no stranger to high school baseball in Nebraska. Before coming to Millard West, he served as Elkhorn’s head coach from 2009-15. Photo courtesy of Steven Frey.

Legion baseball is especially popular in Nebraska, where more than 290 junior and senior teams across the state competed in 2017. In addition to its popularity, Vernon said Legion baseball is useful in helping recruit players. That’s because the high school and college seasons run concurrently during the spring, forcing collegiate coaches to focus more on their own seasons than on recruiting. “They keep their eyes open and they’re looking for guys, but they don’t get the chance to go see them until the summertime,” Vernon said. “That’s when a lot of contact is being made as far as recruits go. Perhaps the biggest positive to Legion baseball is providing an opportunity for players at schools that don’t sponsor baseball to compete in some capacity. Nebraska has 67 school-sponsored teams, all of which are in either Class A or Class B. For kids from smaller schools, Legion baseball is their only chance to play. Alliance is one of many schools across the state with Legion baseball but no high school team. The team’s head coach, Carlos Palomo, is also the head coach of the school-sponsored softball team.

Palomo noted that almost every school with a sponsored team is in the eastern half of the state. Maxwell — which combines with St. Patrick High School in North Platte for baseball — and Kearney are the two westernmost high school teams in the state. Each of the remaining 65 teams is located east of Kearney. Because the western half of Nebraska is almost exclusively Legion teams, the program has a massive impact on students’ ability to compete there — many of whom are multi-sport athletes. Additionally, the Legion season is longer than the high school baseball season, which Vernon said consists of around 30 games. In contrast, Legion teams play around 45 games before any postseason tournaments, according to Palomo. “Our Legion, our summer ball, is a grind,” he said. “It’s very busy, but it’s a tough dynamic to address too with the western part of the state having only Legion, and then you play a lot of those teams in the east if you make it to the postseason, a lot of those kids have been playing since February or March.”

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Matt sichterman, a 6-foot-4, 315-pound lineman for Nebraska, takes a twopoint stance in a pass rush drill. Huskers.com courtesy photo

A look at Nebraska Football’s genius: How Matt Sichterman keeps striving for more Words: Denny Nguyen

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a.m.

The 6-foot-4, 315-pound lineman stares at the four-pound, 15-inch laptop screen’s lines and lines of text. To most people, these cryptic lines look like nothing but chaos -- a jumble of words, numbers and symbols randomly thrown together. But to junior software engineering major Matt Sichterman, this is code. After five more minutes, he slams his arms down in frustration. His body is demanding rest for the punishment endured for the day. He knows that in five hours, he will have to go through that same punishment and he needs time to recover. His mind is also irritated by the homework assigned last week, which is due in 10 hours. After spending countless hours every night on the assignment, he’s still having problems with his code and does not know where the problem even starts. But this is exactly where Matt wants to be. “My dad always told me to pick something hard and be the best at it,” Matt said. With his father’s advice, Matt picked one of the most challenging and demanding majors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: software engineering, all while competing in the grueling sport of Division I football at Nebraska. *** Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Matt, a triplet, comes from a family of athletes. His father, Mark, played football at Drake University while his mother, Judy, swam at Clemson University. His older brother by a minute, Dan, is plays football at Iowa State University, and his younger sister, Megan, swims at the University of Tennessee. He also has two older sisters, Claire, who played basketball and soccer in high school, and Lauren, who swam at the University of Miami of Ohio. The Sichtermans are all athletes, and they also train in academics. “It was never really pushed on us, but it was always that expectation,” Matt said. “As I said, excel at everything.”

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and academically.

Matt Sichterman and his father, Mark; sister, Megan; brother, Dan and mother, Judy, on his signing day, February 1, 2017.

Through his recruiting process, he made one official visit, and that was to Nebraska.

Courtesy photo.

In high school, with multiple AP classes, he scored a 30 out of 36 on the ACT and earned the Academic All-Ohio Award forr athletes with a 3.5 GPA. Matt graduated with a 4.4 GPA. Outside of the classroom, the competitiveness between his brother and sister sparked some motivation. “We would always get our report cards and compare our grades, trying to see who was the best,” Matt said. The siblings took many AP classes together, and each exam always ended in boasting from one to the other. Every grade they achieved turned into ammunition to claim the title as the smartest triplet. And that competitiveness wasn’t just between his brother and sister, but his entire family as well. “My dad beat me in the ACT by one point, and it kind of ticked me off,” Matt said. On the football field, Matt played multiple positions in high school: right tackle his junior and senior year and tight end prior. He was selected for First-Team AllSouthwest District and First-Team All-Tri-State Pick. Combining his academic and football career’s success alongside his community involvement, he was awarded the “That’s My Boy” award by the National Football Foundation. He also won the Anthony Munoz

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Dennis Leblanc, Nebraska’s executive associate athletic director for academics, remembers the discussion with the Sichtermans at the time. Scholar Lineman of the Year Award for his academic and football achievements. In high school, 247Sports scouts ranked Matt as a top 20 player in Ohio and one of the top offensive linemen prospects. Matt drew multiple Division I offers and a total of 29 schools, four of which were Ivy League schools, and eight Big Ten schools. He created a spreadsheet and gathered data on each of the colleges. Ranging from attendance numbers to athletic program rankings, Matt left nothing off the sheets -- what each school was like and how he would fit. The most important thing was whether he could pursue his passion for software engineering, which started in high school and instantly captured his interest. “It was a lot different than a normal class. There were a lot of handson building projects and coding. It was interesting, fun and also challenging,” Matt said. He fell in love with coding and its challenges and decided to major in software engineering. Pair that with playing Division I football seems like a challenging task for anyone. But Matt wanted the challenge; he just needed to find the right college to challenge him both athletically

“His dad was very interested in Nebraska and asked, ‘Can my son play football at Nebraska and get a degree in engineering?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’” Leblanc said. This conversation then turned into an interview, where the Sichtermans asked everything they could to see what the University could do for Matt, aware of the time that football and software engineering demanded. They wanted to know if Matt could do both at a high level and how the athletic department would support him.

mix of 90,000 strong every week and the academic support, I knew,” Matt said.

6:32 a.m.

caffeine. Matt, running on five hours of sleep, grabs a 20-ounce cup and pulls on the tap to fill it.

Matt stands at the Training Table, looking over the buffets to see his options for breakfast.

“This is the secret on how I balance football and software engineering,” said Matt.

In the cold buffet machine is a wide variety of colorful and fresh-cut fruit, parfait served in tall cups and a variety of overnight oats.

For most people, 20 ounces of cold brew could be a little excessive, but Matt needs the energy for his morning meeting and practice. After filling the cup to the brim, he walks over to a table for breakfast with other offensive linemen before heading over to their position meetings.

In the hot buffet machine are scrambled eggs topped with bright green chives, golden brown waffles, crispy chopped potatoes, crispier slices of bacon, juicy sausages and a rotating selection of breakfast sandwiches. Matt wanted something that would fuel him until lunch, but at the same, won’t weigh him down at practice. He goes for a few scoops of watermelon, potatoes and a breakfast sandwich. After that, he stops at the nitro cold brew machine. The recommended serving size for the nitro cold brew is eight fluid ounces and contains 220 milligrams of

*** During the season, Matt is obligated to two things: being a full-time student and a full-time athlete. The combination of the two can present its challenges. Suzette Person, UNL’s director of the undergraduate software engineering program, acknowledges the difficulty. “It’s pretty rigorous. The concepts are challenging to

@mattsichterman AND @CJ Campbell photos

“I told them that we would do everything to avoid scheduling conflicts with practice and class. And if there were an unavoidable conflict, we would prioritize class,” Leblanc said. With five national football championships to its name, Nebraska dominates off the field, too, leading all colleges with 340 Academic All-Americans -- the highest -- ahead of MIT and Notre Dame. “Some schools kind of turned off the idea of being an engineering student and playing football. But when I came here and saw the UNLimited_5.21

learn, and the courses are fairly difficult,” Person said.

haystack.

Code is not something students can learn through reading; it takes a more hands-on approach to learn how to code software. The assignments rarely ask to recite information but for the students to apply their knowledge to create something.

If being a software engineering major wasn’t timeconsuming enough, Matt also has to account for football -- that’s about 35 hours on software engineering and 35 hours on football.

“When you’re given an assignment or a programming assignment, it’s tough to know how long it’s going to take. We’re not good at estimating how long it’s going to take to write software,” said Person. An example assignment that software engineering students might see is with three different scenarios. They must create a solution that can pass all three scenarios while also passing some software tests. Also, the students will not have an outline to follow, just the scenarios, so they have to create from scratch their code that can account for each scenario.

Every day, he wakes up at 6 a.m. and heads to Memorial Stadium for breakfast before meetings at 7 a.m. After that, he gears up in the locker room and heads to Hawks Championship Center for 8 a.m. practice, which lasts about two hours. Once practice ends, he grabs some snacks and Gatorade to continue to refuel before going to the weight room to lift at 10 a.m. At 11 a.m., Matt goes back to the Training Table for lunch and hangs out with his team for about half an hour before heading out for class.

And if that isn’t hard enough, there is no real way to see if the software will work until the very end.

Around 5 p.m., he comes back to Memorial Stadium for either team meetings or another lift, which lasts another hour.

Students can use intuition and create breakpoints within their code to occasionally see if the program is functioning. Still, even the most proactive students in this regard are bound to run into frustrating errors with their code.

After that, he returns to the Training Table for dinner at 6 p.m. and hangs out for another half hour before going home for the day. He spends an additional 15 hours per week developing software at Hudl as a parttime software engineer.

And if there are errors in their software, the code will never explicitly state where or what the error is. These errors can be caused by a minor flaw that could stop the software from working altogether, such as forgetting a simple backslash.

6:45 p.m.

In this position, students spend more time looking through their code to see where the issue (or issues) occur. It becomes a search for a needle in the

• College of Engineering Dean’s List • Academic All-Big Ten for three years • Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award (Matt was one of 200 students to maintain a 4.0.) 50 UNLimited_5.21

Matt arrives back at his house after another long day. After stepping into his room, Matt pulls out his phone and looks at his calendar app. On the screen, he has his schedule for today. Everything up to 6:45 p.m. is marked as complete. He looks at the endless list of tasks that he needs to complete for tonight: a Zoom meeting with his classmates, software for Hudl and another class assignment. He puts his phone away and pulls out the MacBook from the bag. He knew that he was going to have another long and hard night. But this is exactly where Matt wants to be. ***

“there’s always enough time in the day if it’s something you want to do. Just get your priorities straight, be organized and you can get it done.” - Matt SicHtermaN

meticulous planning. At the beginning of every semester, Matt turns to his calendar and creates a regimented schedule of upcoming assignments and meetings. “Growing up, I’ve been used to the structure. I would think that the morning block is for working out, then a block of school, then an afternoon block of football. I’ve always been used to that structure, and so I carry that structure over with me,” Matt said. But the biggest reason for Matt’s success wasn’t because of his organization, but his passion.

“I’m not surprised about his success because I know that Matt cares a lot about his academics, and he cares a lot about football. It takes a really dedicated individual who really wants all of these things to make it happen because it truly is a lot that he has on his plate,” said Person. Leblanc said he was always aware that Matt was a “rare guy” who would succeed in whatever he wanted. “Matt is not a cocky guy. He has this calm sense of confidence,” Leblanc said. “He’s the kind of guy where, if the building was burning down and I was screaming, he’d tell me to relax. He would tell me, ‘I understand how this building is built, and if we go over there, we’re going to be just fine,’ and I would believe it because he’s a smart guy.”

@mattsichterman photos

Matt doesn’t have a lot of free time due to football. But when he does, he makes use of every minute. “In my free time, I’m either catching up on work, which I enjoy doing, or learning something. Watching YouTube, relaxing, keeping that learning train going. I think it’s just my passion to learn,” Matt said. “I enjoy what I do, and that makes each day fulfilling.”

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A week in the life: Editor Edition Words and visuals: Tim Hofmann

he hot New Mexico sun begins to peak over the Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

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It’s 6 a.m. on Saturday, April 10 in my single bedroom apartment just across from New Mexico State University. I take a nice hot shower to wake myself up and prepare for the long day ahead. I tuck my crimson NM State polo into my khaki shorts. I put on my prohibited Nike tennis shoes, as NM State is a strict Under Armor school. In early December, I took a leap of faith. I was offered a job at

New Mexico State as a media relations intern. The jump left me 900 miles away from home in the middle of my senior year, in the middle of the pandemic. I knew no one. The culture was different. The weather was different. Everything was different, but I never once doubted if I made the correct decision. As an intern, I have direct oversight of the softball team, the UNLimited_5.21

women’s soccer team, the track and field teams and the cross country teams. I am responsible for each team’s social media along with keeping up with stats. I write previews, recaps and feature stories that get posted to the official New Mexico State Athletics website. The short version is that I should know more about each of my teams than anyone else in the world. They call us sports information directors or SIDs for short. Any fact that you hear during a live telecast of a sporting event probably came from someone just like me. As I prepare for my three-and-a-half-hour trip to Tucson, I check my equipment: camera, two laptops, extra batteries and chargers -- all randomly thrown into the black Under Armor backpack. I hop into the black Chevy suburban the school rented for me, and at 6:45 a.m., my work day officially begins. I cruise along I-10 in the middle of the New Mexican desert on my way to the University of Arizona campus. I stop by a Wendy’s just two blocks north of Rita Hillenbrand Stadium and grab a 10 a.mx. to try to satisfy my hunger until dinner. I stop at a gas station across from Arizona Stadium, the home of Arizona football. I grab a Monster Energy drink and a couple of waters to get me through the 90-degree day. Two college girls jump in front of me, very much displeased with the lack of choice of alcoholic shooters present on the hot Saturday morning. I head back over to the newly renovated softball stadium two and a half hours before first pitch. The mammoth press box makes the Hawks Field press box look like a Division II facility. I meet the Arizona sports information director who tells me I will be seated on the concourse under the large overhang that protects three-fourths of the crowd from the Arizona sun. I set up my laptop and take my obligatory video of the stadium to put on the NM State softball Instagram story as well as my own personal Instagram. As the Aggie softball team makes its way out to the dugout, I head down to our dugout to grab our lineups for our exhibition game against Team Mexico. One of the nicer perks of being on the inside -- an SID rather than a reporter -- I can pretty much go wherever I want. I trot across the grandstands back up to my station and post our starting lineup graphic to social media. For the remainder of the afternoon, I ran back and forth from the photo bay, the dugout and my work station sorting and posting some of my photos. Following the first game, I plug the final result into our website and post a final score graphic. After that, I ran down to our dugout to give them box scores and get the lineups for game two against No. 8 Arizona. I head down to the dugout to get some in-game photos (like I said, the perks of being a SID.) The game ended and unfortunately for the Aggies the eighth-ranked Arizona Wildcats

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got the best of them. I head back to my workstation to begin my postgame recap. After the softball recap is posted, I begin to write my track and field recap, which finished up action during the final softball game. As I am finishing the track and field recap, I receive a text for my boss asking if I can finish up his baseball recap. I spend another half hour at the stadium before sending the baseball recap out to local media. By 6:30 p.m., my day at Rita Hillenbrand Stadium is done. I quickly Google to find the closest In-N-Out Burger and drive 10 minutes for my first-ever meal at the iconic fast food restaurant. I spend an hour trying to find an open hotel room. I settled on a Holiday Inn Express and began to sort and edit the hundreds of photos I took throughout the day. 11 p.m. rolls around, and I decide it is time to head to bed. I set the alarm for 5:40 a.m. for a little golf before I make the three-and-ahalf-hour drive home. After arriving

in Las Cruces at 6 p.m., I make a quick run to the office to do about an hour’s worth of work. Monday comes along, and at 6:30 a.m. I stumble out of bed for my COVID test. I then spend the rest of my morning compiling game notes for the upcoming WAC Women’s Soccer Tournament. At 1:30 p.m. I begin packing for a possible weeklong trip to Phoenix, for the conference tournament. The assistant coach, a player and I leave the soccer facility at 4 p.m. for the six-hour trip to Phoenix. On Tuesday morning, I put together a release for our two track athletes awarded WAC Athletes of the Week. I squeeze in my JOMC 487 JOMC 487 Media, Ethics and Society class before we make the 10-minute drive from our hotel to the 3 p.m. kickoff against the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros (UTRGV). I take some pregame shots of the scene and continue to take in-game shots while live tweeting the match from

my laptop that sits right behind the bench.

game of our doubleheader. I capture the moment of the Aggies’ first no-hitter in a decade.

The Aggies pulled out a 3-0 win for its first WAC Tournament win since 2014. As the team showers, I sit outside the Jerry Colangelo Museum on the campus of Grand Canyon to write my recap. After a team dinner, I spend the remainder of my night going through the photos until 10 p.m.

I get right back to work with photos and live tweeting while making sure all of the stats are correct. Game one ends, and I wrap up the recap. I run box scores down to the coaches, get their lineups and set up scoring for game two all within the 30-minute period.

I repeat the same soccer process on Thursday along with compiling game notes for the upcoming softball series on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Aggies fell in a penalty kick shootout to the No. 1 seed. At 8 a.m. on Friday morning, we make the six-hour trip back to Las Cruces. Upon my 3:15 p.m. arrival at the NM State campus, I quickly unload my suitcase from the van. I grab a pair of unwashed khaki shorts to change into before I make the quick trip over to the NM State Softball Complex where I arrived in the third inning of the first

I spend the rest of my night live tweeting while helping out our student worker with scoring. The game ends, and I repeat the same process as game one. I tracked down our star pitcher who pitched the no-hitter in game one for a little postgame interview. Due to some awful Wi-Fi, I go back to my apartment to write my postgame recap and update our social media graphics. I arrive back at the softball complex at 10:30 a.m. the next morning for the 1 p.m. game. I am the first one in the press box, common on most game days. Sometimes, I am there before the team. The maintenance crew works on our field as I set up the game ahead. This includes the scoring software, live stats, posting lineup graphics, inserting lineups into the software and running down some pregame stats to the coaches. If done correctly, a burden is lifted off of my shoulders. Everything seems to be working. One of the student workers is running the scoreboard. My coworker is running the stats. I run the Twitter account posting highlights, and we dominate the series finale. The game ends, and I do my routine of running stats down to coaches. The Wi-Fi seems to be working today, so I spend the next hour writing my recap and compiling notes. I leave the press box, and notice that I’m the only one left in the ballpark. Coaches are all gone. Maintenance crew is not there. It’s just me. Then my worst fear came true. The gates were locked. I was locked inside the softball complex. I looked to my left and right before hopping over the fence with my bag strapped to my back and drove home. Just another week in college athletics.

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Refugee and international students: a small but mighty percentage of huskers

by: brennan merkle

dentity is a word often associated with the embodiments of beliefs within a person. But it can also refer to one’s feeling of loyalty and attachment to their home. Most people don’t realize how connected their identity is to their home until they leave or are forced to leave. Nebraska is one of the most diverse states when it comes to the resettlement of refugees or those who have been forced to leave their homes. The Midwest state had the nation’s highest per capita refugee resettlement rate in 2016 with 76 refugees per 100,000 residents, nearly triple the national average of 26, according to the Pew Research Center.

Here are some of their stories: A blanket of white snow covered the never-ending landscape of cornfields, mirroring the orange, red and yellow hints of the distant sunset. The fields stretched as far as the eye could see, like an ocean dipping to the edge of the horizon. “‘Look, Mom! There’s an ocean up there! Let’s go!” said a young Khoi Tran. Laughing, his mother responded to him, “An ocean of corn.”

For refugees, resettlement means a hopeful chance for a new opportunity. But the integration into a new society can comes with its difficulties and barriers. One of the most prominent barriers is language.

Born in Indonesia, he spent the majority of his childhood growing up on the tropical beaches of Vietnam. The small town of Hastings, Nebraska looked like an ocean to Tran at first glance, just a different type of ocean. His family moved to America in1999 at the tail end of a decade rich in Nebraska football success.

Patricia Simpson, Ph.D., German professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who studies language and immigration, said entering a whole new environment can be intimidating.

“When we came to America, to Nebraska, we were always wondering why everyone was wearing an “N” on their T-shirts,” he said. “I thought at first it was some type of brand name, which I learned that it is.”

“For refugees, the idea of having to restructure their entire identity to abide by the societal norms is not at all irregular,” said Simpson. “That often begins with language.”

Growing up, Tran and his family experienced plenty of barriers as a refugee family in the states.

“Add in the fact they don’t speak the language, they don’t know anyone or know how to access anything it creates a difficult situation for anyone.” For the state known for the “Nebraska Nice” motto, it’s no wonder refugees resettle in Lincoln searching for a new home. On Husker game day, the sea of red and crowds of Nebraska gear can be an intimidating sight for anyone, let alone someone unfamiliar with the sometimes-manic college football culture. At least 114 countries are represented on UNL’s campus with more than 3,000 international students, according to 2018 data.

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“We didn’t have a house at first. We started out living in a host family’s basement. We had no credit, no car - my father used to wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and bike me to grade school. My sister and I learned English to help them with insurance, getting a driver’s license and applying for citizenship.”

khoi tran courtesy photo

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Tran has been about trying to help others his entire life and decided as a first-generation college student, he wanted to go to school and use his degree to help people even more. In 2016, he earned his master’s degree in higher educational administration from UNL. Now, works with the university through the Nebraska College Preparatory Academy (NCPA) for college access. “We work a lot with first-generation, low-income, underrepresented students,” Tran. “Our goal is to bring them to the university and provide them with financial scholarships so they don’t have to worry about paying for school.” Tran has additional plans for how he can contribute even more to these populations, and that plan is to go back to school and earn his master degree in psychology in order to open a therapy practice in Lincoln. Down the line, he looks to earn his Ph.D. “Every conversation that I’m having with students ends up going towards the topic of trauma, anxiety, depression - and since I’m not a therapist, I thought why don’t I just get a degree in it?”

word “passion.” Rashoka sat and let the word resonate between him before answering. To have a passion for something is to have a strong and uncontrollable emotion for it. Regardless of the language, Rashoka had a passion to try and learn as much as he could. “Six months later, no matter the page of the dictionary, or the word my brother picked, I knew it,” he said. Rashoka, a Yazidi refugee originally from Iraq, resettled in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2016. Lincoln has the largest Yazidi population in North America, with somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 refugees. Before coming to America, he worked with the US Army in Iraq as a communications interpreter before getting into healthcare because of the disparities he witnessed in Iraq.

Coming from a Vietnamese family, Tran is looking to serve this community specifically.

“Many families are prevented from getting things like baby formula,” said Rashoka. “It was near impossible for the poor families to get. Seeing the women and mothers in my neighborhood communities struggle to feed their children motivated me to get into healthcare.”

“My main goal is to break the stigma between Asian Americans and therapy. It’s a very big problem,” he said. “Because with Asian Americans and Asians in general, we don’t talk about mental health.”

After arriving in the US, Rashoka, who speaks both Kurdish and Arabic, began studying locally before ending up at UNL where he earned his master of science in nutrition and health science and is now working on his Ph.D.

He has noticed there’s a large trend in mental health issues in refugee communities but knows it’s not necessarily a new trend. “I didn’t recognize it when I was little, but now I can definitely tell that my parents were stressed,” said Tran. “The trauma that comes with moving to a new country brings about a bunch of stressors, and refugees don’t come with the proper coping skills.” *** In a small room of a small home, mostly made of clay, sat a 12-year-old Falah Rashoka. His brother stood next to him with an English dictionary in hand. He asked the meaning of the

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“If kids cannot afford to go to games or watch, nothing is motivating them to play that sport.” - falah Rashoka

Left: Falah Rashoka in kurdistan & graduates from UNL right: khoi tran and his family courtesy photos easy to come by. During the pandemic, he volunteered with the student response team at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where he helped spread knowledge about the virus to non-English speaking communities. “We worked with contact tracing, separating any disinformation and communicating as fluently as possible. This helped me understand how the virus is affecting people who are in the poorer communities.” This changed the motivation of his studies, and he looked to research more about infectious diseases in low-income and less-English speaking families. Rashoka has written multiple published articles about refugee health and access to healthcare. “The biggest factor was language,” he said. “When it comes to health, due to many dialects, refugees don’t always get the correct information. For example, in the Kurdish language, the term ‘appendicitis’ is completely different among dialects.” Rashoka made it clear that while language is rooted in most of the refugees’ problems, it’s not the only thing affecting their overall health conditions. Access is often dependent on money, something that isn’t

“When refugees move, they usually just get their bags, nothing else,” he said. “Say they wanted to try and join a gym, they usually have to work a year or two before they can afford to become gym members, which ends up straying a lot of refugees away from gyms.” While Rashoka and his family have been able to catch a Nebraska game at Memorial Stadium, the pricing of tickets makes it hard to attend. “Everybody was always talking about the Huskers, and who they were going to play that weekend,” said Rashoka. “So, I decided to try and go to a game and found out the tickets were $150 each. It was so expensive.” He admits that it took him a few Google searches to start getting the hang of American football. The different rules can affect the game and be less transparent for people who are not from the US. “If kids cannot afford to go to games or watch, nothing is motivating them to play that sport, which keeps people, like refugees, away from that specific sport, which is unfortunate.” *** UNLimited_5.21

It was a rainy, foggy day in Lincoln, Nebraska, hovering just under 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the skies grey as any piece of sunlight struggled to make it through the clouds. Samvruth Raj checked the weather app on his phone. It’s 3 a.m. in Bangalore, India, and currently 73 degrees Fahrenheit. Raj let out a sigh. Regardless of the weather, he still sports his red sweatshirt with a big “N” stitched on the front. As an international UNL student, Raj chose to come to Nebraska, over other destinations like Canada, England or Australia. Originally from Bangalore, a southeast city in India, Raj decided on Lincoln as his college destination in 2019. “I didn’t have the United States as an option at first,” he said. “I always wanted to go to England. But I felt there was more opportunity at a four-year university rather than anything less.” During his journey from India to Nebraska, which was over 30 hours, Raj started learning about his new college hometown. “I remember being on a flight from Paris to Atlanta and I sat next to a woman going to Florida for vacation. She asked me where I was going for school, and I replied Nebraska, she was surprised and laughed. But then she told me that the people were really nice, which I experienced firsthand. My first days were very special to me.”

In an industry filled with the voices of many, he is a strong advocate for getting even more diverse voices involved. “When it comes to diversity, I’ve been in Samvruth Raj courtesy photo classes, I am in classes where I am the only international student,” he said. ‘It made it all the harder for me going into a class that’s already filled with only American students, being the only one who looks or speaks a little different. I do think there needs to be more diversity.” Having not been a follower of American football before, the aura of Husker football was immediately captivating to him. As an international student, information and tickets were foreign to him but his passion remains. “The way I look at Husker culture is that everyone is very loyal,” said Raj. “It’s rubbed off on me because I know that wherever I end up, I’ll always root for the Huskers. It was intimidating at first, but it was just that I had to get used to it.”

After finally touching down in Lincoln, Raj had one thing on his mind. “I was so excited to be here and see the town,” he said. “But I could not wait to lay down in my dorm bed.” Raj, a sophomore studying sports media and communication, said sports have always been “super close” to him. ‘It’s kind of a big risk because I don’t know anyone involved in sports,” he said. “None of my friends from home are. But that just makes me want to try and get people interested in it and involved more.”

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Listen: What you didn’t know about the nba bubble by: Jacob Benson and Brock Birkholtz

“We created a culture in the nba where it is OK to talk about mental health, depression and anxiety, and that is something I am very proud of.” - Garth Glissman click here or use this qr code to listen to the story.

Anxiety screenings increased 93% in 2020, with a 62% increase in depression screenings since 2019, according to Mental Health America. For residents living inside the NBA bubble in Orlando, there was much uncertainty. After the season came to a standstill on March 11, 2020, games eventually picked up in July with players isolated at a resort on campus at Disney World. Players were not allowed to leave or so much as mingle with others. This isolation from social life and their families created difficulties for players stuck in the bubble for up to two months. We talked to Garth Glissman, NBA’s vice president of basketball operations, about the mood around the NBA office when the season came to a halt and his opinions on how the NBA handled player’s mental health during the season finale. We also talked to Kelly Flatow, executive vice president of events in the NBA, who played a crucial part in the construction of the NBA bubble. We spoke to her about the bubble’s decision-making process and the mental health results for player counseling. We then talked to Chuck Cooperstein, the Dallas Mavericks’ playby-play voice, about how the media and the pandemic affected NBA broadcasters.

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Listen: nebraska esports plays catch up by: ben gilg

students use bellevue’s esports arena

Esports is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. So far, 175 colleges and universities offer partial or full scholarships for esports. Nebraska has two of those 175 schools: Midland and Bellevue University. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln started embracing the esports culture not only by hiring professors well-versed in the field but also introducing an intramural program filled with esports tournaments. Students participating in esports intramurals tournaments say: “The support was awesome” and “Overall, the tournaments were run very well.” Midland has more than just intramurals, however. The school rewards esports student competitors with scholarships. With 28 players across six games, Midland has its hands in a little bit of everything. UNL is playing catch up to make esports succeed. Don’t believe there’s interest here? One of Twitch’s biggest streamers, Dr. Lupo, lives in Omaha and routinely holds a top 50 spot on Twitch’s most subbed list.

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benjamin lupo, better known as drlupo, streams on twitch

Midland’s esports jerseys

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Listen: sports fan’s future after a year of covid-19 by: Austin Kingsley

For many, the most noticeable change in pandemic sports was the dome of silence surrounding every game. First, the players were sidelined from sports, and then longtime season ticket holders were sidelined from their familiar seat in the crowd. In March 2020, the entire sports world was halted. COVID-19 disrupted live events everywhere. No one was spared. Now, the big question looms: When does it all go back to normal? One year later, sports fans are looking for hope. With the emergence of widely distributed vaccines, conversations have begun about whether fans can pack the stands again in the fall. Opinions vary. Some are optimistic while others want to see more progress. In this podcast, Austin Kingsley looks into the short-term future of sports and the possibility of returning to normalcy.

The Pinnacle Bank Arena in 2020. Photo by Aaron Housenga 68 UNLimited_5.21

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Listen: Golf: The Sport that Beat Covid by: Jacob Benson Fairways and greens! The golf industry not only survived the pandemic but thrived in it. One of the few sports where social distancing existed before the start of Covid, only courses in states with the strictest lockdown procedures suffered. COVID hurt a lot of sports. According to NBC, it completely destroyed over 90 sports programs from 26 different colleges and universities. With people stuck at home starting in March 2020 and the weather only getting nicer, golf seemed like one of the best activities one could do outdoors in a public health crisis. Sure, it was difficult for a lot of courses to let players golf all 18 holes due to the pandemic, but that did not stop golf from becoming a new passion for thousands throughout 2020.

We talk to Corey Kruger, a PGA professional at the Estancia Club in Arizona, about how the business side of golf was booming. Jessica Haraden, student-athlete on Nebraska’s women’s golf team, goes through how playing women’s golf for a school was in the pandemic. Finally, Dann Husmann, Ph.D., director of the PGA Management major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, talks about the student interest in golf going down the PGA road at UNL. “We have had to hire a lot more people to accommodate the increase in people playing golf during Covid,” Kruger said. To explain how golf differed in lock down procedures between states and what playing golf for the university during COVID was like,

Haraden said, “In California, even on the range you need to wear a mask, no putting greens, and a lot more procedure.” Nebraska courses are not as strict, and players do not lose that much access. To discuss the future of the PGA management major at UNL, Hussman, said, “We trust the leadership at the PGA of America to give us structure and how things will proceed with protocol to understand and handle what is next.” The best way to get outside and do something during this time is playing a sport that has one of the lowest probabilities of contracting Covid. For many, golf is and will be that sport.

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THE NEBRASKA BASEBALL TEAM CIRCLES IN PRAYER PRIOR TO THEIR MATCHUP WITH MARYLAND AT HAYMARKET PARK ON FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2021, IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.

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Jaxon Hallmark has a mentality that many talk about and only few possess. As A senior, Hallmark hopes his play will land him a spot on an Major League Baseball roster. 74 UNLimited_5.21

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The Tip-off

Hallmark sets between pitches during the Huskers’ matchup with Maryland at Haymarket Park on Friday, April 9, 2021, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Tim Verghese Photos

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Huskers history: nebraska basketball beats no. 1 missouri by: ethan petrik and will wilson When was the last time the Nebraska basketball team beat a No. 1 ranked team in the country? It’s OK if you don’t know the answer because it was all the way back in 1982. Nebraska was coached by Moe Iba at the time and the Missouri Tigers, ranked first nationally at the time, were the last undefeated team in the country at 19-0.

“We were more popular than the football team after beating missouri ... it was the biggest win in nebraska basketball historry.” - Jerry Shoecraft

Ethan Petrik and Will Wilson sat down with Jerry Shoecraft, who was the starting forward for the Huskers, and Kent Pavelka, who was on the call for that game, to talk about their own experiences that day. The Missouri Tigers were known for “The Antlers” -- a loud and relentless student section. Ethan and Will also talked with Terry Harris, a member of The Antlers who was at that game in 1982.

Go back to February 6,1982 and relive the last time a Nebraska men’s basketball team beat a No.1 ranked team in the nation.

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Jack Moore, the Huskers’ consensus All-Big Eight point guard, became the school’s first three-time Academic All-Big Eight basketball player and won the 1982 Francis Pomeroy-Naismith Award as the nation’s most outstanding senior collegiate basketball player under 6 feet. Huskers.com PHOTO UNLimited_5.21

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Maddie Washburn Photo