Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 17

SgQRES ACTiQId PEATUHES iMl VW gets 12fft straight win 3C 2 Lincoln Journal Star Tuesdav. August 5. 1997 Gwen Knapp coacjiies oisiihiss two player Edwards, Guidry no longer on team NU BY KEN HAMBLETON Lincoln Journal Star Davis goes toe-to-toe with cancer A' I. 1 -1 I Zi-- ir 1 I I J.R. Edwards, one of the most publicized recruits from Lincoln in recent years, was one of two players dismissed from the Nebraska football team, Coach Tom Osborne said Monday.

Osborne said Edwards, a sophomore wide receiver from Lincoln Southeast, and George Guidry, a redshirt freshman rush end from Lake Charles, were dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons. Osborne said he could not disclose specifics for the dismissals, which brought to three the number of players dismissed from the team this summer. Osborne added that Edwards and Guidry will not return to Nebraska this fall, and the dismissal is "likely permanent" Edwards could not be reached for comment. He was a two-time Lincoln Journal Star Super-State basketball player and a Super-State football player. He was named the Journal Star Athlete of the Year in 1996 and chose to accept a football scholarship from Nebraska over offers from Notre Dame, UCLA and Colorado.

He said he was also offered basketball scholarships from Syracuse, Villanova and Oklahoma, among others. Edwards was a prep Ail-American and played in Nebraska's first game last fall. He caught one pass for 10 yards and had one punt return for 3 yards in four games. He was disciplined and not allowed to attend the Orange Bowl game in Miami last January. He finished the spring as the third-string split end behind Kenny Cheatham and Jeff Lake.

Guidry was a prep All-American at Washington-Marian High School and chose Nebraska over Michigan, Miami, Florida and Louisiana State. He was considered one of the best recruits of Nebraska's 1996 class. Guidry moved up to third on the depth chart at left rush end behind Chad Kelsay and Mike Ruck-er. Earlier this summer, Osborne said center David. Webber, a redshirt freshman from St Louis, was dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons.

He also said that Justin Fer-relL a redshirt freshman from McAllen, Texas, transferred to TCU. Osborne said the dismissals were the result of not following disciplinary protocol. "There's a point where we say that you have to do this and that to be fully reinstated to the program and if you don't you are dismissed," he said. "This is a consistent policy. It is consistent with the point system (for infractions) assigned by the team's unity council "It is one of the most difficult parts of my job." All-America linebacker Terrell Farley was dropped from the team last year after he was 5, s.

RANDY HAMPTONLinccln Journal Star A Dave Baron (left), the Riddell helmet representative, fits Nebraska freshman Dion Booker of Oceanskte, for a helmet Monday. Booker, brother of former Husker Michael Booker, was among the freshmen who reported for equipment checkout and orientation Monday. If you want to see NU vs. KU, you have to buy two If you want to see the Nebraska football team play this year, tickets for three of the Huskers' road games are still available, but there's a catch for the Kansas game Oct 25. NU fans who want to travel to Lawrence, to watch the Huskers take on the Jay-hawks will also have to buy a ticket to another of KlTs home games.

Tickets to all Kansas home games are $26, except those for the Nebraska contest which will cost $30. So to see the Huskers play the Jayhawks, itil cost you $56, and you'll get to see KU play twice. "We did this last year with the Kansas State game here to help build our ticket sales," said Chris Thalmann of the KU ticket office. "Our tickets go on sale Aug. 7.

And if there are tickets left for the Nebraska game after Sept 15, then you can buy the Nebraska game just as a single ticket" Your choices for other KU home games are Alabama-Birmingham Aug. 28, TCU Sept 6, Missouri Sept 13, Oklahoma Oct 4 and Iowa State Nov. 1. Kansas has allotted Nebraska the minimum 4,000 tickets required for visiting teams under Big 12 Conference rules. Nebraska fans have already snapped up the 4,000 tickets allotted for Husker games at Washington and at Colorado.

The Nebraska ticket office can receive up to 10,000 tickets for games at Baylor (Oct 11) and at Missouri (Nov. 8). Tickets for those games are still available. All of Nebraska's home games have been sold out since 1962. Nebraska ticket manager John Anderson said he hopes that Nebraska never has to package game tickets for football, such as Kansas is doing.

More on NU, Page 4C Patie: raser ace pays lor Lincoln Crusaders suffer 11 -10 loss. 3C OAKLAND, Calif. Eric Davis, a cancer patient, didn't look the part last weekend. He dressed as a Baltimore Oriole, sparing none of the accessories. Uniform No.

24, eye black, wrist tape. He had it all None of it was necessary, of course. Davis wouldn't take the field, wouldn't have to fend off the sun at the Coliseum. But this was an afternoon game. Ballplayers wear eye black for afternoon games.

And Eric Davis, even sitting still in the dugout, was a ballplayer again. "Had my game face on," he said. "I knew the guys would relax when they saw that and enjoy it. You have to help in any way you can, and I can't help by playing, so On June 13, a surgical team removed one-third of Davis' colon, which was harboring an apple-sized malignant tumor. Chemotherapy treatments, aimed at preventing a return of the cancer, began about three weeks ago at the UCLA Medical Center, near his Southern California home.

The sessions will continue until December, roughly once a week, his arm attached to a needle and tubing for two hours at a time. Through all of that, Davis will try to play baseball again. He has begun walking on a treadmill and lifting some light weights, but he -has not swung a bat in earnest for two months. His 1997 average remains frozen at .302, with seven home runs and 21 RBI in 34 He will start hitting off a tee soon, and then report to Baltimore in the middle of the month to start serious conditioning. Will it work? He has no idea.

Shortrterm optimism Davis' optimism is the short-term variety. He said he felt great, that he had avoided the horrible fatigue and nausea typically associated with chemotherapy. Except for his two daughters, 7 and 11 years old, nothing wears him out. He lost about 12 pounds before the surgery, when doctors placed him on a liquid diet. The weight has not returned, but Davis knows that cancer and chemotherapy could have done far worse to his 35-year-old body.

"Everybody's telling me you're going to be sick and this and that, but I haven't felt that," he said. "It's almost like I'm kind of waiting for it to happen, so I can get it out of the way. "I'm like a kid in a candy store," Davis said. "To be through what I've been through and be out there again, it's a big emotional uplift for me and, I think, for the team, too." Saturday, he watched Baltimore beat the Oakland A's, 13-3. It was at the Coliseum seven years ago, in the fourth and final game of the 1990 World Series, that Davis' body first turned on him.

Diving for a ball in the outfield, he lacerated a kidney, becoming a champion and a casualty on the same night While his Cincinnati teammates doused each other with champagne, he lay in a nearby hospital. Determined to return His formidable career was waylaid for years, and abandoned at one point. He pushed too hard to return the season after the kidney injury. He did the same after neck surgery a few years later. Only a temporary retirement in 1995 allowed nun to heal.

Last season, he went back to the Reds, hit 26 home runs and caught the attention of the Orioles. When his stomach became cranky in late May, he had to leave a game early. At the time, he had to know that people were questioning his fortitude, as they had in years past. In sports, a fragile body is often mistaken for a fragile mind. When Davis decided that he would try to play baseball again in the fall, while undergoing chemotherapy, he wryly told the Orioles' beat writers that he hoped the attempt would prove his toughness.

But he owes nothing to the game or the public anymore. If anything, baseball karma owes him something, and the Orioles are In a food position to cover the debt, hey are the best team in baseball right now, and so maybe in October, Davis will finally feel champagne trickling down his I hold them to two runs is something." Lukesh gave up both runs in the first inning but then settled in and held Drake hitless in the final three innings. He allowed six hits and struck out six to earn the win. "This was a big game and everyone has jitters. I just got settled in and then I was fine," Lukesh said.

"My curve wasn't working in the first game of the tournament (which Brager lost). So tonight I kept working on it and kept with it Almost every warmup pitch was a curve and when we were at bat because Brandt Bacus was DH (designated hitter) for me, I could keep warm." Brager capitalized on Drake's first two errors of the game in the fifth inning. Cory Novacek reached on an error and advanced on a sacrifice. With two outs, Brett Stohs reached on another error and Drake starter Brian Lukowski walked the bases loaded. Bacus slashed a single to left driving in two runs.

Nick Barksdale then singled in Nate Bruner, who was running for Josh Smith, and Bacus ended the scoring when he came home on a passed BY RYLY JANE HAMBLETON Lincoln Journal Star OMAHA Patience was certainly a virtue for the J.C. Brager team Monday in the Class A American Legion Junior State Baseball Tournament Brager, made up of Lincoln Southeast players, couldn't get a break in the first four innings, but finally broke through in the fifth for a 6-2 victory against Drake Distributing at J.J. Isaacson Field in Seymour Smith Park. The victory kept Brager alive in the double-elimination tournament Drake, which was the last team to suffer a defeat, drew a bye into today's 8 p.m. championship game.

Brager will meet Grand Island Home Federal at 5:30 p.m. to determine Drake's opponent "You know, that's baseball You hit some stingers early on and get nothing. But you're putting it in play and then some dribblers work out for you," said Brager Coach Mike Dobbs. "John Lukesh pitched a gem of a game. That team can pile up runs night in and night out and to ball.

Brett Krebs came on in relief to end the inning. "We made some changes there because I thought every run might count We had to get on the board in the fifth, especially when we got our first guy on," said Dobbs. "We needed to get at least one run and get within striking distance." Brager stretched its lead to 6-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning when Spencer Doyle beat out an infield single and advanced on Nate Keller's single and a fielder's choice. Doyle came home on a wild pitch. Drake, made up of players from Omaha Creighton Prep, got on the board in the top of the first when Matt Garland reached on an error and Brendan Riley looped a single over third base.

Chris Hinrichs blasted a triple to the right-centerfield wall to give Drake a 2-0 lead. a ir ASSOCIATED PRESS MAC football coaches consider Red Raiders best of the league A Dallas Cowboys Coach Barry Switzer talks to reporters Monday at Austin, Texas. Switzer was arrested at the Dallas-Forth Worth Airport Monday for carrying a loaded gun in his bag. Switzer arrested in airport with gun BY MARK DEROWITSCH Lincoln Journal Star "You know what it means? It doesn't mean anything right now," Otten said. Maybe the poll won't be useful for Otten, but the rest of the NIAC coaches will likely get some mileage outofit "It means something to us, Orv," said Hastings first-year coach Ross Els.

"It means we will have something to put on our bulletin board the week we play you." Midland Lutheran, which received one first-place vote, placed third in the poll with 33 points, followed by Hastings (28), Dana (22), Nebraska Wesleyan (17), and Concordia (nine). Wesleyan Coach Brian Keller, In his second year with the Plainsmen, doesn't take much stock in preseason polls. Especially this season. "You can make a case for anybody in the conference to win this thing," Keller said. Good news for NWU Wesleyan defensive end Chad Case received a medical hardship and will return to anchor the NWU defense this year.

Case, a fifth-year senior from Ralston, believed his playing days were over, but he petitioned the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility this spring, and his wish was granted. Case, who was sixth on the team in tackles a year ago with 49, was injured after two plays in Wesleyan's season-opening game in 1993 as a freshman. Case, who along with tackle T.J. Martin are NWU's only returning players with experience up front, will make a difference as Wesleyan More on NIAC, Page 4C Texas (AP) -So much for the Dallas Cowboys cleaning up their off-the-field image. The problem this time, however, wasn't with a player.

Coach Barry Switzer was arrested Monday after a loaded revolver was discovered in his carry-on baggage at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Switzer was detained, his weapon was confiscated, and he was released about two hours later on his own recognizance, said airport spokeswoman Angel Biasatti. Switzer, after returning to Austin to join the team at training camp, said he had inadvertently left the gun In his travel bag after putting it there with the intention of hiding it from three young children who were guests at his home over the weekend. "I am embarrassed for (Dallas owner) Jerry Jones and the Cowboys organization for an innocent honest mistake that I made," Switzer said at a previously scheduled news conference. He was clearly shaken by the incident and refused to take any questions. "It's a very serious matter," Jones said.

"This Is not something that Barry Intended to do. More on SWITZER, Page 4C ASHLAND Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference football coaches Monday picked Northwestern (Iowa) College to repeat as league champion this fall. The Red Raiders, who finished last season with a 10-2 record and advanced to the quarterfinals of the NAIA Division II playoffs, earned the endorsement of four NIAC coaches and scored 46 points to finish on top of the preseason poll, which was released during the league's annual media day at Maho-ney State Park. Doane finished second in the poll with 44 points and two first-place votes. Northwestern Coach Orv Otten wasn't thrilled about being picked to win the NIAC crown..