Saturday, April 14, 2012

Cancelling spring only decision that makes sense



Is there such thing as a game being “tornadoed out?”


Apparently so. With most of eastern Nebraska anticipating severe weather and a likely tornado outbreak, NU officials canceled Saturday's annual Red-White Spring Game.


Minutes after the scheduled 1 p.m. kickoff time, Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne announced the decision on HuskerVision screens, noting that the game would be played Sunday if conditions improve.


A little more than an hour later, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini took to the microphone to announce that the game will be canceled.


“I don't think that’s going to work out,” Pelini said of a Sunday scrimmage. “When we met with the team, there’s a lot of issues that go with playing (Sunday). When you talk about family issues ... I had a show of hands of guys who had a problem with tomorrow -- you have projects, academic things, a banquet coming up – it’s not going to work.”


Hindsight is always 20-20. You could make the argument that Friday’s forecast said that Saturday was going to be a mess; Osborne should have made the decision to cancel the game then and there but keep in mind forecasts can also change. The flip side of cancelling the game just minutes beforehand is that thousands of fans wasted time and money making the trip. Then again, they should have known better.

When weather is being billed as “life threatening,” being safe needs to be job number one, not a spring football game.

In all honesty, canceling the spring game will have little to no impact on the Huskers 2012 season. Pelini he already knows what he has in his team. Plus, he doesn’t have to spend an hour with the media answering the same questions over and over, and most importantly nobody gets injured. I wish they would have canceled last night and tried again next weekend but I think civilization will continue.

The decision was made for the fans, players and coaches. It’s wrong to think otherwise. The last thing the University wanted (or needed) was a stadium with 60,000-plus fans, a big storm rolling in, tornado sirens going off, and hailstones pelting cars and people. You are putting too many people at danger -- and that has to be the first line of thinking.

This was a no-win for Osborne. If he cancelled earlier without rescheduling, storm re-routes and heads away, he looks even more foolish. If he doesn’t cancel at all and the storm hits a nearly full stadium, even the NU attorneys would agree with "very foolish" as they are negotiating the settlements from all the claims that stated he should have cancelled.

Given the list of foolish actions, I’d take the one Osborne took and gladly take a few hits on internet message boards.

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