Seeing Red

In advance of the Nebraska-Wake Forest football game Saturday in Winston-Salem, N.C., a few Nebraska football facts, courtesy The Greensboro News-Record:

Academics: Nebraska boasts more Academic All-Americans (248) than any school. Since 2001, Wake has graduated 93 percent of its football players.

Fans: Wake sold a record 17,000 season tickets, about 1,000 to Huskers fans. The 17,000 figure represents approximately one-third of Wake's living alumni base. Over the past six years, Nebraska has averaged 61,000 fans. For its spring game.

Governor: Political office to which legendary former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne aspired in 2006. A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001-07, Osborne lost in the Republican primary.

Heisman: Three Huskers have won college football's most coveted individual honor: Johnny Rodgers (1972), Mike Rozier (1983) and Eric Crouch (2001).

Itinerant: The professional lifestyle of Cornhuskers assistant coach Phil Elmassian. In 34 years in the business, Elmassian has worked at 16 schools: William & Mary, Richmond, Ferrum, East Carolina, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Syracuse, Washington, Boston College, Wisconsin, LSU, West Virginia, Marshall, Purdue and now Nebraska, where he has settled down for four seasons. If he returns to the Huskers in 2008, he ties a career high for longevity at a single institution.

Media: Eight Nebraska TV stations routinely travel to Huskers road games. Among the newspapers expected to staff Saturday's contest is The Star Herald in Scottsbluff, a 416-mile drive from Lincoln. How far is 416 miles? It's like driving from Greensboro to Pittsburgh.

Nicknames: Throughout their histories, both programs have employed coaches with distinctive monikers. Among those who have guided the Huskers: Walter C. "Bummy" Booth; W.C. "King" Cole; Ewald O. "Jumbo" Stiehm; Lawrence McCeney "Biff" Jones; and George "Potsy" Clark. On the Wake side, we offer Dixie Clyde "Peahead" Walker.

Offense: Bill Callahan took the job in 2004 with the reputation as a West Coast, fling-it-all-over-the-field guy. But in the opening win over Nevada, the Huskers ran for 413 yards.

Population: On the six Saturdays when it's full each year, Memorial Stadium (pop. 85,044) is the third-largest city in Nebraska. At those times, it's home to one of every 20 residents of the state.

Quarterbacks: Nebraska's Sam Keller was an Arizona State backup when the Sun Devils won at North Carolina 33-31 on Oct. 18, 2003.

Red: The Huskers' hue, and a dominant one. A year ago, 30,000 Nebraska supporters ventured to the L.A. Coliseum to see their team play USC.

Sellouts: The Huskers have sold out 283 consecutive home games since failing to fill Memorial Stadium Oct. 20, 1962. And there was an excuse that day: a distraction called the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Tokyo: That's where Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman and 100 other Cornhuskers will watch the game. They'll be taking a break from a trade mission to head to Legends Sports Bar and Grill, which caters to American tourists. The entourage returns home Sept. 13, two days before the Huskers' game with USC.

Unprecedented: The Huskers have never played on an ACC team's home field. The Deacs lost in Lincoln, 31-3, on Sept. 10, 2005, and 36-12 on Sept. 12, 1970. (That 1970 season was pretty good for both teams; the Huskers won the national title and the Deacons claimed the ACC crown.)

Venue: Wake's stadium (official capacity 31,500) is the smallest facility to host a Nebraska game since the Huskers played Hawaii in 25,000-seat Honolulu Stadium, affectionately known as "The Termite Palace," on Dec. 4, 1971.

Winning: Nebraska's winning percentage in its football history is .704

Lessons learned

There's now reason why we should be surprised by steroid allegations anymore.

Yet, we are.

There is no sport — aside from the painful "sport" of professional wrestling — that has endured more scrutiny about its lack of cleanliness than baseball. While we all sat back and watched brutes bang bombs out of parks throughout the major leagues and unknowingly idolized brutes who couldn't hit .250 but could pound 30 jackbombs a season, we turned yet another blind eye.

How so aware we were of the transgressions of countless ball players of past, and how quick we were to condemn those currently in the game who sought an edge. Bonds is villified to the point where you wouldn't want to offer to start his car in the morning; Giambi is a flat-out admitted cheater and yet back in the game, and Canseco dimed everyone out to make a few coins of his own.

We're more than exposed to cheaters in baseball.

So why do we still continue to follow the game that has such a closed mind?

A story released Thursday alleged that the new Crown Prince of MLB, Rick Ankiel, was juicing.

But, in a sport that has so repeatedly hurt followers who made the grave error of actually believing in its competitors, it's stunning that we were all so taken by storm by yet another cheater, a guy who has only been following the unwritten illegal rule that has been the back bone of this beleaguered sport.

Yet, when the headline appears, we're stil surprised? Was it that big of a stretch that Ankiel, who failed miserably as a pitcher in the bigs, was so desperate to get back to the MLB? Here's a guy who had probably the most public meltdowns in the history of sports, He was demoted to the minors, but yet when he returned to the bigs and started hitting home runs at an alarming rate, the most consensus response was: Wow, Rick Ankiel is unreal.

But never: Can someone check to see if Rick-Anks is juicin' a bit?

Well he's alleged to have used HGH, and while many hope Anks gets his act together,the fact is that we're so utterly willing to drop our opinions on cheating when it comes to sports.

Ankiel went lights out the past few days on the mound. But we're all the ones who remain oblivious to the cheaters in the most obvious sport.

Bad memories

Perusing through ESPN.com Page 2 today and came across another installment of Paul Lukas' "Uni Watch",, which is completely frivolous yet enjoyable reading when you have enough time to click through 1000 links and look at jerseys.

Scrolling down through the column, you'll come to a point where he discusses a few of the teams in the NFL that are honouring members lost in the past year. You can find the links to those patches here, here, and here.

Which got me to thinking.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers grieved the loss of a former player when Orlando Bobo passed away in the spring.

Bobo was an offensive lineman for the 2004 season who left the team following that campaign in the midst of contract disputes.

The Bombers have honoured Bobo by putting a ...

well, they haven't honoured him at all.

Bobo was indeed a one-year member of the Bombers, but the Blue also had the misfortunate of saying goodbye to another former teammate this off-season when Nick Benjamin died. The team now wears a '68' on their helmets in honour of Benjamin, and while the tribute is a nice touch, it could also have been done much better.

The Benjamin number most certainly should be there but on first glance, if you can see in the photo above, the number looks almost identical to the number designating the player who is actually wearing that helmet. So, in actuality, the two numbers have very little distinction from one another, making the 68 almost unnoticeable and its impact decidedly lessened.

We've seen it time and time again through sports, a white number on a black background that makes the acknowledgement stand out while also being plainly clear what is trying to be conveyed.

Secondly, there are two players to consider here. Why Bobo's not mentioned and Benjamin is can likely be chalked up to years of service with the team.

Still, if the Bombers are going to make the effort to honour their lost alumni, it would've been nice if they did it properly.