I'm stuck here in bed rest most of this week ( My first post op visit is Thursday), and even though I am half baked on meds, I am bored out of my skull. As such, I am looking for a topic. I do love my Huskers as most of you already know, but I guess blogging is more than a play by play run down of the worst coached team in history. I can only write of my desire to see that coach strung up so many times.
Since this blogging thing is supposed to improve my writing skills, and I am currently surrounded by many bright, creative and intelligent people here at Fox Sports, I thought why not enlist the help of the community in grooming my skills?
I am thinking I would like to try to do a bio.
Any suggestions on a person, or team, or whatever would be great. As I said, I would really like your impressions of my writing, and your suggestions to make it better or more (I don't know) entertaining? commercial? intelligible? What ever you feel would make it better.
No matter if you are born here in Nebraska, or move here, at some point something inside you makes you proud to say, I am a Nebraskan and the Huskers are MY team. I say MY team in the possessive, because that is how WE Nebraskans feel about OUR Huskers. Every last one of us, even if we move away and root for a local team, or go to a different school and root for our school, no matter where we go, or what situation, when we look inside the answer that comes out is, the Huskers are MY team, just as Nebraska is MY home.
Through and with OUR players, of any sport really but in particular OUR football team, Nebraskans and players have developed a sort of symbiotic relationship. Nebraska's pride motivates and invigorates us, and WE inherently expect to see that reflected on the field of play by OUR team. Over time this symbiotic relationship became the foundation for OUR traditions. In honoring OUR tradition, by doing their best on the field of play, OUR teams can be proud of themselves, even through the disappointment of the accessional but rare defeat. By motivated play and invigorating performances, Nebraskans recognize that OUR teams have done their very best, and no matter the outcome, can take pride in OUR teams accomplishments.
This relationship is not an easy one to live with. Obviously it will not always be amicable as our expectations are high for ourselves and our team. But this relationship, this tradition, has given Nebraska and Nebraska's players the confidence to say, no matter how stacked the odds against us, we can win! Together we have created an environment that expects and achieves excellence, and together we will get better day by day, until we can't be beat - we won't be beat!
To our Coaching staff. Coach Bill Jennings had many fine qualities as a man and a coach. He was an excellent recruiter, with excellent players, but he could not find a way to win. Unable to find the winning formula Coach Jennings resigned after the 1961 season. It was an act of honor and gallantry that benefited the team when he resigned. While few remember him as being a winning coach, many respect him for his selfless act that lead to the beginning of the longest winning streak in modern history. Coach Jennings may not have found the way to win, but he did not allow his teams or Nebraska to be embarrassed. Since Coach Jennings resigned we have seen three generations of Nebraskans enjoy success. Since your arrival, we have seen the end of every record that matters, and the worse loss in the 117 year history of this team. Please take the high road and resign for the benefit of our team.
To Nebraskans. Nebraska has lost something far more important than a football game. We have allowed the stewards we put in place to protect our traditions fail. The cause of the failure, be it egotism, ignorance, or incompetence, must be corrected. Nebraskans have a duty to protect and preserve the traditions that have made us great. Namely, to provide our players with the best, so that they can be the best. We have already begun the process of cleaning up this mess by replacing Mr. Steve Pederson with Dr. Tom Osborne. We need to make sure that we do not stop there. It is abundantly clear that the current coaching staff is incapable of providing the instruction and leadership our players need to be successful. If this staff should selfishly refuse to do the honorable thing and resign at the end of this season, we are left no viable option but to dismiss them at whatever cost.
To the players and recruits, it is a distinct honor and privilege to be asked, and to play for Nebraska. Nebraska has a tradition of giving it's players the best in order to become the best. Do not expect that tradition to change. Do not worry about the score nearly so much as the effort you put in to achieving it. Consider the honor that has been bestowed upon you to play for Nebraska, and expect and accept only the best from yourself and your teams. By achieving this goal, by expecting and accepting only the best from yourself and your team, you will always be a winner, and more often than not, the score will reflect that.
To our competitors. We thank you for your words of encouragement and support during our programs darkest hours. We congratulate you for the victories you have won these past four seasons. We look forward to meeting you in our future confrontations on the field of play, and we hope you will not begrudge us when we win.
I am on day 3 post op, and for the most part I am recovering "normally". My pain levels have been just that, level. They have not gone down at all.
I wanted to take a moment to discuss a drug used just prior to my being taken into the surgical unit. Versed is a drug that is given to people to relax them or make them forget. This medication has taking a strong foothold in the health care industry and is being used in procedures as wide as dental to surgical. I imagine there are quite a few people in the world who can honestly say, "Dude I don't WANT to know everything that happened during my last colonoscopy!" However, I can see where having no memory of a procedure may be exactly what the doctor ordered. In a world of litigation what better way to protect your interests than to deliberately rob your patient of his or her ability to remember the procedure?
Furthermore, how can a patient with no memory and as it turns out, little or no ability to resist direction, be in control of their health care? I told my nurse, that I didn't really want it. She said it would be a good idea and gave it to me anyways before I could object. I felt a bit upset that she flatly ignored my wishes, then I felt the wave hit me, and knew from that moment on I would not remember anything, and I don't. I remember being asked questions about my care up until that wave. From that point on, I was a mindless puppet. I have no memory of any event until much later in the evening, several hours after my surgery was complete. If the point of this medication was to relax me, I have no idea how well it worked as it was given in such a high dose as to obliterate nearly 12 hours of memory. I have vague memories of being in my room during the evening, along with lost time, as though I was trying to come out of it and only sporadic moments registered. This was the case until around 9PM.
I remember my wife telling me that I had complications, and that the nurse wouldn't, or couldn't tell her what those complications where, and that my surgery lasted nearly twice as long as predicted. I think the only reason I remember this early conversation with my wife, was that I felt very bad for her. I imagine the stress would have been hard for her to deal with, and it seems that the answer she received about the "complication" did little to ease her mind. In other words, my care of her feelings stand out. I cannot recall the conversation, I can remember the main point. I think I picked up on her voice and the worry conveyed in her tone. Her concern for me, and mine in turn for her where strong enough to cut through the lingering effects of the drug, thus allowing me to form a sketchy memory. I have sporadic memory of telling someone who was trying to wake me up to leave me alone. This doesn't surprise me a bit. I would tell a drill sergeant to take a hike if he woke me from a deep restful sleep. In fact, I have! I can recall walking earlier in the afternoon, and being given soup, when what I really wanted was a nice thick hot juicy rib eye. I remember putting on a nicotine patch to quell my desire to smoke, I just don't remember when I did it.
What I don't recall is spending an entire afternoon with my wife and kids there. I don't recall answering questions about how I felt, and or what I wanted. Did I watch TV? Did I rob a bank? Did I make any life altering choices? I have absolutely no clue, and if you came up to me and told me I did do those things, I would call you a liar first off, then I would have to admit, I really don't know what I did.
This frightens me. I consider myself to be at least average in intelligence, and fairly stable in personality, but what happens to people who have hidden personality disorders, or who lack the critical thinking skills necessary to make reasonable choices about their care? The liability as I see it, is entirely upon the staff and hospital to protect people influenced by mind altering chemicals from themselves. The problem is, how do the care givers know when the medications have actually worn off? What happens if a patient becomes combative as a result of this disorientation? I can see this as a very real possibility. Also, who will protect the patient from predatory staff members in the hospital setting. As I said earlier, the drug makes you extremely vulnerable to persuasion. A situation many young women have come to regret as the street use of these drugs are commonly used in date rape scenarios.
I think it may be in the best interests of the health care professionals to stop doping their patients for every little thing. The patients may become violent and with no personal restraints to hold them back, dangerous to your health! Furthermore, I have seen no policy or assurance from providers to protect patients who have been doped.
I want to make one thing perfectly clear, so there can be no doubt or confusion of my intent. The staff on the floor was OUTSTANDING! They seemed to anticipate my needs and had everything ready. They had fantastic personalities and I thoroughly enjoyed my interaction with them. I can only hope I did not act the #### while under the influence of these medications, as I knew the majority of the staff personally, and under normal circumstances I would treat them with nothing but respect. At the time of my discharge the floor was very busy, and while there where concerns that I did not get discharged in 24 hours, the staff handled these issues with the insurance company, and even under fire, acted as a friend to me and my family. I thank them very much for their professionalism and fine care. Don't worry ladies, if your reading this I didn't forget, 5lbs of gourmet fudge is on the way just as soon as I can get back to my kitchen.
I have been NPO now for about 3 hours. My alarm will go off in about 2 hours, and then I will get myself ready to go. I check in at 06:30 for my surgery. You know, I have such high hopes of success; you would think I would be over the top with nerves. I probably would be except my doctor prescribed me the Pill.
You know I have been fired up about the Huskers. Callahan acting the fool, Pederson's ego-ectomy, the sound bites proclaiming the return of Dr. Tom, the general up rise of nearly every man woman and child over the age of 4, and you would think with me going under the knife in just a few hours I would be more worried about that than my Huskers.
The truth is I am hoping I will be so much better after this surgery that I will be able to go back to being the physical hard hitting kind of guy most people don’t take me for. You see, I have had these terrible reoccurring nightmares that I really don’t mind, of Dollar Bill bumping into me in a bar, and for whatever reason, he gets into it with me, and I release the last 4 years of frustration on him. Oh I know, I know, I could never do that, but in my dream anything goes. I punctuate each phrase with a nice steady combination:
Praise the Lord and pass the can!
For opening your mouth and making denigrating comments about Oklahoma.
POW!
For cracking that pie holed face and making crude comments about another teams quarterback in the press.
BIFF!
For draining the will to win from the young men you are supposed to coaching to win
BAM!
For running your mouth and ruining the reputation of the fans of this great school.
WAP!
For destroying the walk-on system at the University!
CRACK!
For destroying the longest winning season streak in the history of college football!
ZAP!
For ruining our teams record of most consecutive post-season bowl appearances!
CHUNK!
For denigrating the traditions that players and fans have held since long before you were deposited!
KAPOW!
For boldly lying to the players, alums, and fans, of UNL on how you would make this team better than it had ever been before!
ZAP BOOM!
And lastly for making my dear wife’s grandmother cry when she saw what you had really done this season.
KNOCKOUT!
Okay, I embellished the last one, but it was a LOTR moment. :o)
After reviewing this post, I'm going to have to remember to ask the Doc for some more of them pills...
I offer my sincere condolences to the Litteken family, Adam’s friends and the Cottleville community. I can only hope that they can come together and heal from this senseless tragedy.
At times like these I find myself with a lack of words to properly describe the feelings of empathy and sadness that fill me, the depth of those feelings, as painful as they are for me, must be overwhelming to Adam’s parents and close friends, and make my words seem shallow and diminutive to my own ears.
With this said, I hope that the Litteken family will excuse the remainder of this blog, and know that all persons of good spirit support them now in their time of tragedy.
I am appalled and ashamed by the reprehensible comments posted by members of our very own FoxSports community.
I found these examples on the first 7 pages, along with other posts by our community calling for the death of these posters, while the rest offered support for the Litteken family.
While the three posts I copied from above are bad enough, we have others calling for their death, and discussing racism, and spouting words of hate and disrespect for humanity. As the Litteken family was actually there reading these horrid comments, along with Adam’s classmates, and friends, I decided not to post my comments about our FoxSports community members on the actual story above.
I would expect that an overwhelming majority of our posters, had a true wish to offer words of encouragement and support to those affected by this tragedy, however many of them tainted their posts with comments of hate for posters such as the three I quoted above.
I am not suggesting for one moment that the comments of these three, or any others who may follow their rancid footsteps are to be accepted. I too am angry with them, and pity them for their soulless callow existences, but I do not think that our community members need sully Adams memory with the posts.
I don’t know what if anything can be done to undo the damage that has already been meted upon Adam’s family and friends, they have after all already seen the posts, and for that I am truly ashamed of our community, and offer whatever apologies one could make for the disrespect our community has shown.
I am asking our community, and FoxSports, what if anything can we do to prevent this from happening in the future?
I would suggest as a beginning that these posters, the three I noted above, and any others like them, have their accounts terminated at the earliest opportunity, and that such actions as necessary and reasonable be taken to block their ability to return.
I would further suggest that community members that wish to post comments of support not make mention or reference to the posts of these social malcontents while doing so. At least this way, our community moderators can edit and remove the filth deposited by them without having to remove your good intentions.
There is a time and a place for bawdy fanaticism, and strenuous debate laced with colorful language, and testosterone fueled banter, this is not one of them.
I am open to the ideas and suggestions from our community members and FoxSports, on what we as a community can do about these situations, and I hope this blog may inspire the debate necessary to facilitate positive change for our entire community.
