I don't know how many of you caught the Nebraska - Oklahoma volleyball game on ESPNU this past week, but if you did you had to be amazed at how close the Oklahoma fans were to the Nebraska volleyball players during the serves. Now it sounds like there will be some actiontaken on the part of the Big 12 conference:
Nebraska coach John Cook said Monday that OU event management staff and Big 12 referees lost control of Wednesday's match in Norman, Okla. The Huskers beat the Sooners in five sets before a crowd of 2,046, the second-largest in OU volleyball history.
Cook said OU fans viciously taunted Nebraska servers from extremely close proximity.
Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne said he has addressed the matter with the appropriate people. He would not say whether he contacted Oklahoma or Big 12 officials, or both.
Several members of the Oklahoma women's basketball team stood right next to the Nebraska player whenever they were making a serve. You had to be amazed that the Husker volleyballers maintained their composure with the opposing team's fans screaming only inches away. The harassment had an obvious effect, however, as Nebraska committed 14 service errors throughout the match.
Nebraska struggled at times, but got eventually the best of the Sooners, winning in five sets. The win stopped a two-match losing streak.
The word "unsportsmanlike" was used to describe the taunting by Oklahoma fans, but that's a little light. Abuse might be more appropriate. An OU spokesperson stated:
"We view this event as an opportunity to further educate our student-athletes and fans about sportsmanship, and to continue modeling it as administrators, coaches and staff."
What a load of crap. If they were concerned about it, they should have done something during the match, but clearly they didn't care. They were more worried about beating a struggling Husker team than they were with anything resembling decent behavior.
What is it with Oklahoma that they feel the need to resort to this kind of classlessness?