Curt McKeever: Slight fear can give a player an edge
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The memory from 34 years ago still makes me wince.
George Foreman’s uppercut is lifting my childhood sports hero Joe Frazier completely off his feet and into a broken heap on the boxing ring canvas.
Smokin’ Joe, then the unbeaten champ, picks himself up for the sixth time in less than two full rounds, but the fight is mercifully over. Foreman is now the new heavyweight king of the world and I’m having trouble believing my eyes.
Blaine Gabbert
6-4, 230, QB
Ballwin, Mo. (Parkway West)
Rated as the nation’s No. 14 prospect by Rivals.com.
This season: Longhorns opened the season Friday against Poplar Bluff.
Prospect and prankster
A starter since his sophomore year, Blaine Gabbert threw for 1,523 yards and 20 touchdowns and ran for 458 yards and eight touchdowns last season.
But his teammates know him as just Blaine, the guy who shows off his formidable muscles at team pool parties and participates in locker room practical jokes.
“He does things from time to time when you’re like, ‘You idiot,’” said J.C. Kime, Parkway West’s defensive coordinator. “But it’s just dumb stuff.”
After Gabbert taped shut Colton Long’s locker recently, several teammates returned the favor.
Another time, his teammates switched Gabbert’s lock with a teammate’s.
“He wanted to know who did it,” Wenthe said.
Tough under pressure
Gabbert, not the team’s regular kicker, lined up to attempt a 45-yard field goal at a recent practice.
If he made it, Kime, the Longhorns’ lumbering 6-foot-3, 300-pound defensive coordinator, would run four 100-yard sprints. If he missed, every player would run.
“With Blaine, it’s all or nothing,” Kime said. “It’s like Sammy Sosa.”
The kick sailed less than a foot from the upright, and for one morning, at least, Gabbert was not perfect.
“That stunk,” teammate Shane Kirkpatrick said.
Ready for primetime
His teammates admit there are perks to playing with a future NCAA Division I quarterback.
Occasionally, they get to take part in interviews, usually to answer questions about Gabbert. Oh, and Gabbert is the player most responsible for securing the Longhorns’ national television appearance next month.
Set your DVR for 7 p.m. on Oct. 5, the night that Gabbert’s Parkview West team will take on Parkview North on ESPNU.
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Past Husker
Barrett Ruud
Tampa Bay
No. 51, linebacker
Next game:Sept. 9, at Seattle
High school: Lincoln Southeast, captain of 2001 Super-State team.
At Nebraska: Became all-time leader in tackles in 2004.
In the pros: Bucs’ second-round pick in 2005 started six games last year.
For starters
Barrett Ruud is in the middle of everything the Tampa Bay Buccaneers want this season.
The third-year player from Nebraska is the starting middle linebacker for the Bucs and defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin.
That means no more looking to the sidelines to see if 10-year starter Shelton Quarles is coming back into the game. It also means Ruud can get to playing football the way he knows best.
“Being the starter I don’t have to worry about, ‘Don’t screw this play up,’ and ‘Don’t make a mistake now,’” he said. “I can just fly. Make the plays full-speed and go.”
Runs in the family
Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden, in an interview with the AP, said of Ruud: “He’s a good middle linebacker with a chance to become outstanding. We’ve got to play great around him, too. Barrett Ruud is going to be a leader here, and he is asserting himself right now.”
That runs in the family.
Ruud became a captain at Nebraska. His father, Tom, was a team captain, and his younger brother, Bo, was just named team captain. Counting an uncle and grandfather, that makes five NU team captains in the family.
“I know Bo is excited and I’m excited for him,” Barrett said. “He’s really come along well at Nebraska. He’s stepped up and taken charge.
“In college ball you need a guy who is more vocal, more encouraging,” he said. “In the NFL, guys are motivated by wanting to keep their job. But you can be a leader here, too. What you do, how you act matters.”
Rested and ready
Ruud hasn’t seen much action in the preseason. He sat out the first game with a sore knee. He’s played about a quarter of each of the last two games and sat out again Thursday against Houston.
“I never felt like I needed much play in the exhibition season - knock the rust off and get some hitting in,” he said. “I know guys who live and die based on the preseason games. I was lucky and didn’t have to count on that so much.”
Ruud has spent a lot of time watching film of middle linebackers around the NFL. He’s studied Lofa Tatupu and Odell Thurman, who were also second-round choices in 2005.
Ruud shakes off the fact Tampa Bay has brought in four-time All-Pro Jeremiah Trotter from the Eagles and Leon Joe from Chicago.
“Every day, you earn your way on the roster,” Ruud said. “It’s a game-by-game thing. You play well, you stay. Nobody can afford to protect you if you don’t live up to expectations. I can’t blame teams for cutting people. I’m OK with that.”
- Ken Hambleton
It was a brutal beating, and one that, years later, Foreman would claim was sparked in part by a fear for his life.
He recalled how, as the two met in the center of the ring for pre-fight instructions, he hoped Frazier would keep his stony stare on Foreman’s face so Frazier couldn’t see that Foreman’s knees were shaking.
Then, with each knockdown, the thought occurred to Foreman that he’d only made his opponent mad enough to want to get back up and tear him to shreds.
Now, I’ve never come across a Nebraska football player who would admit he feared for his life before a Husker game. But if you don’t think Bill Callahan’s warriors aren’t fueled by anxiety entering today’s season opener against Nevada, you don’t understand why they push their bodies through torrid summer workouts, or sharpen their minds by spending hours in the film room dissecting an opponent’s every move.
“Every time I watch a college team play, even though I’m in college and I’m a player, I see them and go, ‘Man, they’re so big and so fast and so good — I’m not like that at all,’ Nebraska junior guard Matt Slauson said.
This comes from a guy who, at 6-foot-5 and 335 pounds, is the largest of all Huskers.
“Last year when I watched film on USC, I was like, ‘Man, this is going to be impossible.’ And I went out and held my own.
“And then against Texas, they have those two first-round draft pick D-ends (actually second-rounder Tim Crowder and fourth-round Brian Robison), it’s like, ‘I’m never going to be able to keep up with those guys. I’ll be giving up sacks left and right.’ And I was fine.”
When Nebraska faced the Trojans in Los Angeles, you would have had no problem finding Huskers who were battling atelophobia. That’s the fear of imperfection.
Undoubtedly, there will be some of that going on again when USC comes to Lincoln in two weeks. But a more common condition that helps push athletes through their trepidation is atychiphobia, or the fear of failure.
“Every time I step on the field I still get those goose bumps,” said offensive tackle Carl Nick, who’s the same height and only five pounds lighter than Slauson. “That fear that I have, I don’t fear my opponent, I just fear letting our team down. That cranks me up a little bit.”
Today, it will come as a surprise to most if the Huskers don’t win their 22nd straight season opener. Nevada has played in bowl games the past two years, but in the modern era of college football, the Wolf Pack have just two victories against opponents from BCS conferences (Northwestern last year and Washington in 2003).
And, yet, there’s nothing quite so mysterious as a season opener.
“You can watch film as much as you want, but until you actually play against the person that’s listed for you to go against, I mean, you really don’t get a feel for what they have and what their strengths and weaknesses are,” NU nose tackle Ndamukong Suh said.
It’s that thought that gives Suh a better understanding of what Foreman meant about being afraid.
Fear and doubt can make one feel alive. It’s why we love the heat of competition.
For all his insecurities, Foreman won 76 of 81 professional fights (68 by knockout), and in 1994, at age 45, became the oldest man to win the world heavyweight crown.
“That’s pretty intense,” Slauson said of Foreman admitting to being afraid. But “I know if I’m scared for my life, if somebody’s coming after me to kill me, I know I’m going to do whatever I have to do to get them away.”
Let the season (and the wincing) begin.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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