SWEET RELEASE

Life can sometimes seem like a collection of things that get in the way of living. During a few precious months in the fall, these annoyances become just that little more tolerable thanks to the magnificent outlet that is college football. The stress, responsibilities and interruptions that pile up on Monday to Friday and make you feel like a kettle about to boil over are vented on Saturday right about the same time you crack open that first tailgate beer or click on College Gameday and lose yourself in the the sparkling, reassuring gaze of Kirk Herbstreit.

Then, almost as quick as a Stephon Greene screen pass, it's gone. The curtain comes down on the college football regular season and leaves a lion-sized hole inside you. Try as you may to fill it with holiday cheer, cheese puffs or the NBA regular season - it's just not the same. Well, last night I found my wonderdrug - the Penn State Nittany Lions Women's Volleyball Team.

Since September, I had been following the progress of this juggernaut in The Daily Collegian as it steamrolled team after team in defense of its 2007 National Title. All week, I had looked forward to watching their national semi-final match against the 2006 champion Nebraska Cornhuskers and hoped to see the improbable winning streaks of 109 consecutive sets and 62 consecutive matches continue en route to back-to-back championships.

Then, ESPN decided to pay attention to the remarkable streaks and gave the squad its kiss of death - a spot on Sportscenter. At first, it seemed like it wouldn't matter as PSU rolled to a two set-to-none lead. Then the partisan crowd in Omaha, the largest ever to watch a volleyball match on U.S. soil, lifted the 'Huskers to a third-set upset and snapped the Lions' streak at 111 straight sets.

The bad news continued when Nebraska captured the fourth set as well, forcing a winner-take-all fifth set for a trip to the national title game against Stanford. During all of this, ESPN's cameras kept cutting to Kori Cooper, a junior on Nebraska's squad who suffered a season-ending injury last month. It wasn't just that she was animated and waving a towel to get the crowd fired up each time the 'Huskers earned a point, it was that she was wearing a camouflage jacket and a big pink bow.

The jacket was part of a motivational tactic employed by Nebraska's head coach and did little else but remind me of Miami in 1986. That was all I needed to start screaming at the TV like this was a Penn State football game and create a volatile verbal cocktail of swear words coupled with "corn."

In the end, the good guys won and Nebraska was reduced to just another number in PSU's record streak, but the high I felt from watching this team win helped me forget, if only for a few minutes, that football season is over until New Year's Day.

So, for any of you that need an outlet for your passion - tune in this Saturday night at eight when the Lions go for back-to-back national titles against the Stanford Cardinal. And don't forget, it's never to early to start beating the Pac-10.

Of course, the newspapers in Omaha like to perpetuate the myth that it matters not whether your win or lose as if people only compete at the college level for the 1.5 credits it earns them.

Read this garbage:

In the end, Nebraska volleyball has opened a window to its soul and shown us what it's all about.

The heart of a champion.

No matter what the score said last night.

Full Text: http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1200&u_sid=10518576

So explain to me, if it has the heart of a champion, why isn't it even playing in the championship game?