[Husker] A Different Take on Tom Osborne

[Mike Nolan]

> 1.	T.O. is in his late-60's. While not as demanding as being the
> Head Coach, being the A.D. at a major D1 school requires a lot of long
> hours and long days. Is T.O. really up to that kind of grind over the
> long term? 

Osborne turned 70 on Feb 23rd.

> 3.	Would a young coach really want to come to Nebraska and coach in
> the shadow of a legend? Again my guess is probably not. 

The presence of Darrell Royal never seemed to cause problems at Texas 
with hiring some high profile coaches, young or otherwise.  Also, keep 
in mind that Osborne had Devaney as his AD for most of his career, and 
Devaney knew a few things about football, so he's been on the other end
of that.  

I see Osborne's 'interim' job as two fold:  

1.  Getting rid of the 'culture of fear' that had become pervasive at
    the Athletic Department.  Perlman said that he asked the Athletic
    Department staff for comments about Pederson last summer and got 
    only two, one positive and one negative.  Actually, I was surprised
    he got that many.  I suspect there were many staff members who 
    didn't reply at all because of concerns that SP would have found out.  
    IMHO, if Perlman has a flaw, it is probably that he is too isolated in 
    the chancellor's suite, as were most of his predecessors.  People only
    tell the 'boss' what they think he wants to hear, whether that's the
    Chancellor at UNL or the President of the United States.  A second 
    problem is that UNL has been and continues to be a very male-dominated 
    institution, so any comments that might have come from women staffers 
    might have been ignored anyway, and I'm sure those staffers knew that.

2.  Mending fences with boosters, including Dan Cook.

Doing those will be a full time job.  There are people around to take care
of most of the business details, though Osborne is a far better negotiator
than most people give him credit for.  

Along the way I suspect he'll be heavily involved in the search for a
permanent AD.  
--
Mike Nolan