MARGARET REIST / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2006 6:00 pm
In a gymnasium surrounded by basketball hoops and teenagers sitting cross-legged on the floor Thursday morning, Nebraska congressman Tom Osborne talked football. Well, football players, really.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate talked about all the young men he worked with in his years as a Husker football coach. How he’d sat in inner-city living rooms and those in suburbia, visited homes in California and New Jersey and the Nebraska Sandhills.
And how that taught him something.
Some of those football players had it tough, Osborne said. No parents, bad neighborhoods, hard breaks. But that’s not the point.
“It’s very easy to look back and blame your circumstances for where you are,’’ he said. “Some people spend their whole lives focusing on what might have been, blaming someone.’’
You can do that, but it won’t be very productive, Osborne told the 60-some children in institution-issue khaki pants and gray sweatshirts and maroon polo shirts who listened from their world behind the locked doors of the Lancaster County Youth Services Center.
Osborne went to visit, to see where they live and go to school, and to talk to them, not about politics so much as life.
“There’s no one here whose fate is sealed,’’ he told the kids awaiting the judgment of a juvenile court in the county’s detention facility. “Where there is no hope.’’
The first step, he said, is an education, because in today’s world it’s difficult to have a good life without at least a high school education and a skill.
“The first thing to do is look at our strengths,’’ he said. “Too often we look at our weaknesses. Every one of you here is special in some way. Think about that.’’
Then, Osborne said, there is faith.
He’s watched his football players — some of whom go on to the NFL and have everything that’s supposed to make them happy. Talent, fame, money, youth. But not all of them do well, Osborne said.
Those who do the best, he said, have a strong spiritual foundation.
“I’m not here to preach to you,’’ he said. “(But) that component of your life is important.’’
And then, the former football coach-turned politician opened the floor to questions.
And for the most part, the audience wanted to talk politics, not playbooks. They asked about Medicaid and drug task forces and just what Osborne plans to do if he becomes governor.
But first, someone had to ask the most obvious question, the one dangling out there, begging to be answered. The one Osborne gets at nearly every school he visits.
“Why did you quit coaching football?’’
Well, he answered, “Sometimes I wonder myself.’’
Actually, he said, it was to keep a promise to someone important to him. Someone he promised back in 1992 that he would only coach five more years.
“Mainly it was to fulfill a promise more than anything else,’’ he said.
Then Osborne moved on, to Medicaid reform and drug task forces. He talked about the need for more education to reduce drug use and underage drinking, and how he believes programs like drug courts are important.
“We just think that’s a much better solution than just locking people up,’’ he said.
He touched on his Teammates mentoring program and why having a mentor can be so important.
“A mentor is simply an adult you can count on,’’ he said.
Leaders of the center’s school, which is a part of Lincoln Public Schools and teaches the students for however long they’re there, asked Osborne to speak.
Before he left for a tour of his audience’s temporary home, he urged them to use their time there well.
“This can be an opportunity,’’ he said. “A springboard for you to make something out of your life.’’
Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com