When we began looking at topics for today's commentary, at first we considered commenting on the continuing insanity of the 2012 GOP presidential primary field. After all, there were three announcements of consequence over the weekend from that laughably sad group of clownish figures.
On Saturday, conservative Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, announced he'd be running for President - and then promptly put both feet in his mouth on Sunday, all the way up to his ankles, when he made a major mistake on the subject of Israel and Palestine.
Meanwhile, one of the men primarily responsible for the economic policies that created the Great Recession, former George W. Bush budget director and current Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, announced Sunday morning that he's chosen not to run for the GOP's 2012 nomination. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty officially announced the opposite - that he IS entering into the 2012 GOP primary race.
Still, the subject that kept coming up was the announcement by University of Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne that Husker baseball coach Mike Anderson and his staff had been let go.
As we've mentioned on occasion, all of our staff has different yet long-standing emotional ties to Husker sports. One of us even graduated from the University, in Lincoln. Paul draws HuskerNutz year-round, and we all wear our Husker red, no matter where we're living. Our web guru, Shawn, was even the Executive Producer of Husker Sports Radio, at one time. He once took an opportunity to swing the bat at Coach Anderson's pitching during "Media Day" batting practice - and Coach A. was mildly impressed.
All this may be true - but we can't fault A.D. Osborne for making the choice he did.
We respect Coach Anderson and the entire Husker baseball coaching staff, but running college athletics these days is a business in many ways. Anyone who argues otherwise isn't being honest with themselves or with you.
Running any business successfully means making certain benchmarks. In college baseball, that means a coach has to take his team to the College World Series in Omaha if he expects to hang onto his position long-term.
As we've often reminded others, college athletics is significantly more challenging than professional athletics in some ways. In college, it's not just a player's ERA or number of home runs that matter. Their GPA numbers count too - and on that front, Coach A. continued to knock it out of the park, all the way to the end of his career at Nebraska. Under Coach Anderson and the Nebraska baseball coaching staff, 72 players earned academic All-Big 12 honors, including 15 players this year, a record for the entire league. Coach Anderson and his staff demanded excellence from their players, on and off the field, and they usually got it.
Admittedly, with changes in the MLB draft and college baseball over the last five years, college baseball coaches have had a harder time than ever keeping star players from leaving school for the allure of the big leagues - a problem that also plagued Coach Anderson. Still, when the announcement was made over the weekend, there were no excuses from Coach A. and his staff - and that didn't surprise us at all.
Mike Anderson and his staff have been a class act for nearly a decade. They did a great job teaching, coaching, and getting Nebraska fans excited about baseball again, especially in the early years of Anderson's tenure.
As they head out of Hawks Field at Haymarket Park one last time, in our hearts, we're giving them one last round of applause, in true Husker tradition.
