Nebraska...not feeling Frosty anymore

[entropy]

Published Friday, July 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm / Updated at 3:36 pm

Ohio State executive is new NU Foundation CEO


The University of Nebraska Foundation's next leader will be a Buckeye.

Brian Hastings, as a senior associate vice president at Ohio State University, has been named president and CEO of the NU Foundation.

The foundation board unanimously approved his hiring Friday after a nationwide search. He has already led a $2.5 billion fundraising campaign for Ohio State.

University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken, in a foundation press release, called Hastings an excellent choice.

“Brian has provided leadership and enjoyed much success at one of the nation's largest and most prestigious public universities,” he said. “I am confident this experience has prepared him well to lead our Foundation at this important point in our history. The University of Nebraska is on a roll, and the Foundation will continue to be a key reason for that success."

Hastings will start at the NU Foundation in the early fall. He replaces Clarey Castner, who resigned in February citing philosophical differences with members of the foundation board.




Post Extras: * * *

[entropy]

Published Friday, July 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm / Updated at 3:36 pm

Ohio State executive is new NU Foundation CEO


The University of Nebraska Foundation's next leader will be a Buckeye.

Brian Hastings, as a senior associate vice president at Ohio State University, has been named president and CEO of the NU Foundation.

The foundation board unanimously approved his hiring Friday after a nationwide search. He has already led a $2.5 billion fundraising campaign for Ohio State.

University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken, in a foundation press release, called Hastings an excellent choice.

?Brian has provided leadership and enjoyed much success at one of the nation's largest and most prestigious public universities,? he said. ?I am confident this experience has prepared him well to lead our Foundation at this important point in our history. The University of Nebraska is on a roll, and the Foundation will continue to be a key reason for that success."

Hastings will start at the NU Foundation in the early fall. He replaces Clarey Castner, who resigned in February citing philosophical differences with members of the foundation board.




Post Extras: * * *

[entropy]

[Ghengis Jon]

Where's the other half of your stadium? Or is it 50 years of half sellouts?

[entropy]

Think of the left side as 1962 and the right as 2012... And you can see the evolution

[hack]

When do you plan to evolve to where Michigan has been since forever ago?

[entropy]

Slow and white??

[Mike]

Think of the left side as 1962 and the right as 2012... And you can see the evolution

I didn't think they taught evolution in Nebraska.

[THE_WIZARD_]

:::grunt:::

[lineygoblue]

Hello

[THE_WIZARD_]

:::grunts louder:::

[lineygoblue]

sheesh... whatta grouch ...

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup....sir

[lineygoblue]

That's better ...

[entropy]

LJS

Ricky Simmons was a forgotten man. At least that's how he felt at times behind bars.

In 2008, he called the state prison in Tecumseh home. He was a repeat drug offender — cocaine was his weakness. It ravaged his life. He was 47. His parents had passed away. There wasn't exactly a line of visitors waiting to see him.

Please rewind for a moment. Nebraska football fans fondly remember "The Triplets" — Turner Gill, Mike Rozier and Irving Fryar. Well, Simmons in 1983 was the Huskers' second-leading receiver behind Fryar.

Oh, how little No. 7 (he was listed at 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, but says he was closer to 160) could fly — and maneuver.

"I could make you miss me in a phone booth," the former split end says proudly.

Once a Husker, always a Husker. Simmons remembers the prison guard who always greeted him derisively: "How ya doin' inmate Simmons, former Husker."

Make that forgotten former Husker, or so Simmons sometimes felt — that is, until that day in 2008 when he received an envelope with a red "N."

He remembers the enclosed letter.

Dear Ricky, I know your parents believed in you. I believe in you. Upon your release, if there's anything I can do to help you, feel free to contact me."

Tom Osborne.

You never really know how profoundly an act of kindness might impact someone. Maybe, just maybe, it will inspire someone to alter the course of their life.

"I fell to my knees right there in my prison cell and turned my life over to Christ," Simmons says.

Osborne's letter arrived a couple of years after Simmons' dying father told him, "Son, I'm not going to be here forever. You need to get God in your life."

Simmons knew his dad was right.

"But I just wasn't ready to do it," Simmons says.

The letter was a sign. It was time to change. Time to heed his dad's words. After all, Simmons says, his way of living wasn't working all that well — it was his third prison stint.

Simmons had no idea Osborne even knew of his whereabouts. It wasn't like they stayed in touch. You might say they ran with different crowds. What's more, Simmons says, he respected the Husker football program too much to come around the team as he struggled with addiction.

Listening to Simmons tell his story about Osborne's letter, you wonder how many other ways Osborne has touched the lives of players. Somehow I don't think all coaches concern themselves with players once they leave a program.

"We have quite a bit of correspondence with quite a few former athletes," Osborne says. "Most are doing well. Of course, there are a few who hit some bumps in the road."

Says Simmons: "The fact he took time out of his day to even acknowledge me … I can never repay him for that."

Simmons left prison for good in December of 2009. He has been sober for three years. He is now a licensed alcohol and drug counselor who runs an outpatient program in Lincoln. He points with pride to the state license hanging on the wall in his tidy office.

He also is a motivational speaker, telling his story at high schools, prisons, youth organizations, wherever he can make a difference.

He tells folks he's an absolute genius — he somehow discovered a way to go from pro football to prison. In 1984, he started every game for the Washington Federals of the United States Football League. He also started using cocaine that year. He got hooked fast. He played for the USFL Orlando Renegades in 1985, but the drug had begun to take over his life.

"Pretty soon football got in the way of my using," says Simmons, underscoring the powerful nature of cocaine. "I retired from football to be a full-time drug addict."

He is brutally honest. I like that about Simmons. His story is a bit atypical in that he didn't grow up in a single-parent home in the poorest part of town. Mind you, his neighborhood in Greenville, Texas — 30 minutes east of Dallas — was plenty rough. But so was his father, Clyde Simmons.

"Let's just say he had a physical presence," Ricky says. "He never spanked me because he was afraid he'd hurt me."

Clyde Simmons was a junior high school principal, and his wife, Bertha, was a remedial reading teacher for elementary students.

"They raised me right," Ricky Simmons says. "They didn't have any addictions. Everything I did wrong was all on me."

Accountability is an integral part of his message to groups. He's passionate about his work. He uses Osborne, who Simmons calls or visits almost every week, as a reference. Because Simmons is aware the Husker athletic director is busy, he keeps the visits short. He mostly wants to show Osborne that he's doing OK.

"If you're going to put your name behind me, after all I've been through, the least I can do is show up and let you look me in the eye and see that I'm still healthy," Simmons says.

Healthy and on the right track — as opposed to the mess of a man he was in the spring of 2008 when the envelope with the red "N" arrived.

"When I received Coach Osborne's letter, it just told me, 'You know what, there is still someone out there who cares, who believes in me.'"

Sometimes that's all we need to hear.